What Do You Do When the Internet Is Down?

We just spent an entire five-hour span without internet service. No email - no anything. What did we do before the Internet? Did we talk on the phone? Read? I cannot imagine - it seems like eons ago and I must have been busy baking bread and doing laundry with my washboard and ringer.

I think we acquired our first home computer about 15 years ago and I recall being a little afraid of it, like it was a dog that might turn on me unexpectedly. I felt so very sophisticated when I learned to use whatever word processing software it had (it was not Microsoft Word) and it all seemed so complicated and uncomfortable. I never dreamt I'd fall in love with email, and Facebook and Twitter and Google. Nothing else for it; I'm smitten with the Internet.