Five Years a Writer

One day after work many years ago, I hopped on the bus that I thought would take me to my downtown meeting. But after a while, I realized that, while I had taken the correct bus number, I had chosen the northern extended route instead of the direct-to-downtown route. The ride took forever and, by the time I arrived at my destination, the meeting was over. During the time of my unexpectedly long ride, I had been incommunicado with the outside world, as this was in my pre-cell-phone-owning days. I eventually called my colleague from a payphone in a hotel lobby to explain my absence at the meeting. Sheesh. What a way to end a long workday! I’m sure that many people experienced a similar feeling of being lost in time and lost to their colleagues and loved ones when, last week, the Rogers network went down right across Canada : No cell service. No Internet. No contact. And, maybe worse, no way to pay for their morning coffee, either: Many vendors could take cash only, as both debit and cred