I'VE BEEN THROTTLED!

I saw that. Don't go cutting your eyes at each other like I can't see you. Uh huh. As if to say, "We all knew THAT was going to happen."

"Yep."

"Just a matter of time."

"I'm surprised Val hasn't been throttled WAY before now."

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer gal."

"She's been playing with fire, and now she got burned."

Genius came home for Christmas break. He was here 25 days. Out of the kindness of his heart, he showed me a thing or two on my computer. That was right after my internet broke. Or so I thought. It wouldn't work one morning. I told Genius, and he fixed it during the day while I was at work. He wouldn't tell me how.

"Look. This site tells you how much of your internet you have used. Not even a third of what you get. And you're more than a third of the way through your billing cycle."

Hmm...why would Genius care? He has his own UNLIMITED internet, through his phone, which he jailbroke, a process which I believe he mentioned was frowned upon. But for $10 a month, that boy has UNLIMITED internet. Same with The Pony. And for Hick. And for me. Of course, those last two are like giving Cosmo Kramer as Dr. Van Nostrand, dermatologist, unlimited access to an operating room. Might as well open up a box of Junior Mints and watch the show, because none of us know what we're doing.

So Genius went on to explain that there may be a lag time of a day or two in the usage and the reportage of how many thingabytes I've used. Let the record show that Val is the only person who uses this internet service through DISH. The boys have theirs on their jailbroken phones through SPRINT. Hick never uses internet at home. That's what he has a job for, looking up barbershop tools on eBay.

Knowing that I had so much internet usage left didn't make Val a movie-streaming fiend. Nope. Streaming is not allowed on my plan. Believe you me, I am well aware of that. The customer service rep who took my order must have asked me five times if anyone would be streaming. No, no, no, no, and no. I kept on with my usual blog-writing, blog-reading, and conspiracy site snooping. Nothing changed.

A couple of days later, I noticed that my internet was really, really slow. Genius sat down at my laptop, Shiba, and pounded those keys like he was Nick Burns, my company computer guy.

"I hate to tell you this, but you have used up all of your internet. You've been throttled. That's why it's slow. It doesn't cost you any more. You can still keep using it. But it's going to be at the speed of dial-up."

Huh. Wonder how I used all that internet?

Funny thing...The Pony was having trouble connecting to his own phone internet. He asked Genius for help. "Well, it won't work because you're using MOM'S internet!"

Such a coincidence. For six months, The Pony and I have peacefully coexisted with no internet usage issues. He uses his. I use mine. But while Genius is here, things go all wonky. The Pony admitted to using mine only for a little bit, not to play games, of course, but for writing purposes. Genius denied using it at all, then said hardly at all. He likes to keep his phone free for texting.

Something's rotten in my DISH.