o1mnikent

For most of the past year, Shelly and I have been siphoning internet access from our neighbors, who, one by one, have added passwords to their networks to the point that we can access only a faint wireless signal from a spot in our house seven feet off the floor midway between the dining room table and the living room couch.

While standing on a chair.

Facing southeast.

Trying not to sneeze.

We’ve also tried entering our neighbors’ wireless networks by guessing their passwords. “KentandShellybestneighborsever” was not one of them.

Fortunately, that all ends on Sunday, when the cable guy comes, leaving us with the ominous task of choosing a name for our new wireless network. Since all but one of the networks in our neighborhood contain a random series of letters and numbers for its name, Shelly and I need to find a creative name for our network.

The name of my previous wireless network was “gnostic power,” so whenever we connected, our computer notified us that we had connected to gnostic power and that, yes, our connection was excellent. (“Very excellent,” if we were sitting in the basement.) I pitied our poor neighbors who, when they tried to connect, received a message that their connection to gnostic power was encrypted, or that they needed a password to connect to gnostic power, or that their connection to gnostic power was poor.