It’s 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night. My history essay is due today by midnight and I’m itching to submit it to my teacher but I can’t because I don’t have internet at my house which is a problem in this day and age.
Throughout my paper, there are blank spaces waiting for fact-checks and information obtainable by the internet. Our house is tucked in a quiet corner of Conway, surrounded by woods.
Although our part of town has been promised internet services multiple times by Comcast and Verizon in the last decade, our welcoming cabin is still untouched by the internet. Additionally, the use of cellphones is inconsistent, given the absence of service.
I frantically rack my mind for locations where I can access the internet to research information and email the final copy to its eager critic. Fifteen minutes down the road I reach the Meekins Library in Williamsburg, its grey edifice luminous in the sleepy town.
After facing similar problems to the one I have tonight, I’ve discovered my computer picks up the Meekins wifi from the decorative benches placed outside the granite walls. I hastily open the laptop and connect to the internet. The darkness swaddles me while I swiftly peck at the lit keyboard with my fatigued fingers.
This constant search for wifi has become an undeniable hardship in my high school career. Although I’ve learned to relish the media isolation at home, those late night endeavors to acquire internet access for school assignments have become excessive.
Ironically, the next predicted date for Comcast to “wire” our neck of the woods is in 2018, the year I leave our internet-scarce town and enter the media savvy world as a young adult.
Sedona LeBlanc
Conway