21st Century Problems: Episode 1 (Louis Toliver Jr - Swartz, LA)

A man asked me the other day if he could use the internet in my home. I asked him why he had to use the internet and he claimed he was waiting on an important e-mail and that his internet had suddenly crashed and he had no clue what was the cause. He was frantic like a heroin addict. Though, usually, it would have been in good nature to let the man inside my home to use my internet, I, instead decided to lie and tell the man that I was naïve to the internet and the only mail I knew was delivered from the post office. I told him I was old school, which the man had trouble processing because he was nearly twenty years older than me in appearance. Either he was indeed older or life had not been good to him. He asked me how I could not possibly know what the internet was and I asked him why he could not possibly believe that there were other possible ways to receive “important” messages besides the internet. He became frustrated with me and told me that the internet was the quickest way to receive information and I was like “Really?” I told him pulling his e-mail up on his smartphone would be quicker then. He said he didn’t have a smartphone. I asked him, "Who’s smarter: the person without internet or the person without a smartphone?" Clearly, the answer to this question is the person without internet, but if you haven’t caught on yet, because of his short attention span I was able to distract this man from thinking the world was ending because he could not have immediate access to the internet. For a few minutes I ended his addiction. I doubt he will ever appreciate this, because, in the middle our conversation his wife yelled that the internet was back on and he ran off.