The Internet Has Fleas, Fleas, Fleas

If your e-mail last week was slower in arriving than Delta Burke squeezing through the eye of a needle, you may have read the reason why. Unless you get your news from the Internet, in which case you're probably still waiting for the page to load. But then, how in the hell are you reading the commune? Looks like I've caught you in your little ruse.

But that still doesn't explain the Internet slow down. The papers (or news monitors) like to confuse the big fat lazy audience (yourselves) with talk of "viruses" and "Internet worms" and all of that nonsense, but those of you who have any experience with the Internet know two things: Always spell the Internet with a capital "I," and always seek alternative sources of news in this corporate-dominated world.

It pays to get a second opinion. In this case, the talk of computer worms and vicious Internet programs is merely to confound you while they find a way to exterminate the real nuisance: Phone line fleas.

That's right, fleas. Why do fleas live on dogs' asses? It's not for the premiere location, let me tell you. Everyone knows fleas seek thick, luscious hair to live in; like my own. But washing your hair even once a week (when it's possible, we don't all have a lot of free time) can keep your hair free of fleas. And there must be more people out there doing this than me, since dogs have become flea havens rather than human heads. But even dogs get baths, which leaves the life of a flea a lot like the life of a hobo—as one cartoon from my youth excellently depicted.

The solution? If you're a flea and seeking relatively safe, unwashed hairy places your options are extremely limited, with France being so far across the ocean. But fortunately, the United States is refurbishing its phone lines with a brand new product called fiber optics. That's right—fiber optics. As in hairy phone lines. A flea's dream.

Scientists who study the behavior of fleas, and surely there must be some kind of creature like that out there, would quickly realize fleas have been taking to the phone lines in the past four years as they've become flea-friendly places to reside. The dogs are happy about it, I'm sure—I see tails wagging; but what about us Internet-using humans? It's left us with crowded fiber optic lines to contend with, and even the expanded bandwith capabilities can only handle so many fleas and baud-per-minute or whatever the nerds say.

My first encounter with fleas occupying the phone lines occurred back when I maintained my site, www.poopoftheday.com. I experienced countless hours of downtime and even my AOL ISP support couldn't explain the problem. My website host tech support stayed on the phone with me for hours, even after several attempts to convince me he had other things to do. He tried to sell me on the idea of viruses, worms, being severely incompetent and not knowing what was going on, which was all just a lame attempt to get me off the phone. Then he admitted the line was occupied by fleas, explained the fiber optic thing, and said he was looking into finding a way to destroy them—then the phone cut off. Apparently the fleas had gotten into even the voice lines. I tried calling back, to no avail.

Is there any answer to this unanswered problem? No, I just said there wasn't. I'm sure leading service providers are seeking Internet-safe flea-repellent cable lines, and they're probably working with the Hartz people on it, but until then, we're just going to have to deal with the slow-downs. Unless you want to start giving your phone lines baths, and I'm not about to do that.

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