“You don’t even exist!”

Last Sunday night (August 10, 2008), we had a fairly strong thunderstorm; not that strong at our house, but apparently strong enough at the so-called elitist country-club to wash out a small but heavy deck foot-bridge.
But that’s another story.
At about 9:30 p.m. the storm was just starting.
I had this here rig on, and suddenly the power dove — but only long enough to kick on our stand-by.
But the stand-by just as quickly went off; grid-power was back. —Still had the Internet; apparently it never tanked. (Often our ISP goes......)
I then set about firing up our Canandaigua National Bank online banking site — intent being to set up an online bill-pay.
Loud booms of thunder; flashes of lightning.
Fiddle CNB log-in page: “RHUGHES” and password.
“You don’t even exist!”
CNB flicks into the netherworld.
I try again — same thing.
I try again — hit the “bill-pay” link; my original intent, to set up on online pay of our gas-bill.
“You don’t have a bill-pay,” it shouts.
“Do too,” we both say.
By now, Linda has joined the festivities.
“Some other time,” I say, throwing up my hands.
Linda goes into the other room to fire up her Yahoo e-mail.
“You don’t even exist,” it blares.
Thunder rolls and lights flicker.
“Ah, the mysteries of technology,” Linda says.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “OW”) Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

We have a “stand-by” electrical power generator that powers our house when the electrical grid fails.

“ISP” is Internet-Service-Provider, in our case cable.

“CNB” is of course Canandaigua National Bank.

“Online bill-pay” is electronic paying of bills. We access our bank from our computer, and initiate electronic bill-pays — instead of checks in the mail.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.