So this is a bit scary but, we've had recent thunderstorm/tornado activity in the area the past week and everything was fine until yesterday, when some storms were rolling through. Our land lines (phone) went out and we couldn't get them to work. Finally, we were able to get a faint half-ring when someone called, but we couldn't talk to the person on the other line or we couldn't hear the person who called.

So this morning we had one working land phone... and then our garage door died. A bolt of lightning struck too close to the house and fried it, we think. Trust us. We heard it.

Thinking... "Okay, we have cell phones. Thank God for them because at least we can communicate this way." I checked mine this morning and it told me "ttyl." You can imagine my surprise when my cell phone tells me it'll "talk to you later." Can't call out to anyone, and incoming calls are pretty lagged.

Good gracious... what's next? I'm waiting for the Internet to die.