“your modem has seen its last days.”

these are the words

that two different

comcast/xfinity customer service phone helper elves

uttered to me

when i read them the 267 digits and a couple of random letters

imprinted on the back of my modem

and described

what it was/was not doing

is this grim prognosis part of the script?

we then went through

a series of modem exercises

as a last ditch effort

to try to revive it

all were hit or miss

all to no avail

until it was confirmed

at last

that it had indeed

passed on

so

 we scheduled an appointment

to have an elf come and remove the old one

to replace it with

a new, younger and more glamorous model

though we had no history

and i feared it would never be the same.

—

“technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

-aldous huxley