the subway has exited the tunnel

It took two or three zesty sessions, but the vile, brown subway did eventually exit the tunnel. I had texted the IT guy around 8 this morning, and I never heard back from him, so I was pretty sure that his visit would happen right as I was lustily squeezing one out while on the throne. And sure enough, there was a knock on the door around 11:45 a.m. while I was in flagrante. Mind you, I live alone, so I have many of the bizarre, difficult quirks of people who live alone. Practically speaking, this means I launch my stercore missiles without closing my bathroom door: I leave it wide open despite its proximity to my apartment's front door (the smell!), not even blocking myself off with a shower curtain. After all, how often is it that I have visitors?

So this dude comes a-knockin' while my ass is a-rockin', and I shout out that I need a minute. I wipe just barely enough to be able to stand like a proper Homo erectus, then try to flush... but I'd forgotten that I had shut off the toilet valve before my trip, so I needed to open it up again. I did that, flushed, then dumped a glug of bleach into the toilet water, but I knew it wouldn't be enough since so much of the bog gas was ambient. I then pulled up my pants (yes: envision the preceding events as happening with my trou around my ankles), closed the bathroom, went over to the door, and let the guy in.

I apologized for having been in the bathroom, but the guy waved it away. His hair, glasses, and posture clued me in that he was a nerdy type often hunched over electronic equipment, so it could've been that my miasma was just a minor circumstantial detail. He got to work on my computer as I explained the problem: I seemed to be connected, and the computer's WiFi-hotspot feature appeared to be functioning because both my laptop and my phone were receiving signal and performing as usual. The guy expressed confusion as he tapped away at my desktop's keyboard: everything seemed to be in order. He opened one of those esoteric windows displaying code and expressed further confusion: everything seemed to be fine, yet my desktop browser's tabs weren't showing any websites. He eventually decided to leave and to come back with his own laptop, saying he'd be back around 3:30 p.m. I thanked him as he left, then immediately went back to the throne to finish what I'd merely begun. While on the pot, I texted my brother David about the incident since he's one of the few people in the world who can appreciate my travails (David own turds have always been of mythical dimensions and proportions). His replies were cheerfully derisive in tone, as I would expect.

I finished, took a shower, and the IT guy called me back around 2 p.m. to ask whether I was using a VPN. I said yes; he said to turn it off and see what happened. Sure enough, the problem cleared up. The man hypothesized that the problem had been with the VPN, not with the computer, and that he no longer needed to make a second visit. I have since turned the VPN back on (I'm trying to hold back all of the evil spirits), and everything still seems to be fine. So if this specific problem ever returns, I'll know to turn the VPN off, then on again.

It can therefore be said that coming home has afforded me at least two types of fulfillment.