Bette Porter was sitting at her desk, head in her hands. Tears of pure frustration were running down her cheeks and every once and a while she would let out a loud scream. She was convinced that she was going to explode. All this was caused by a rather innocent problem. Her internet was being fucked up while she actually needed it.
Hot-tempered as she was, she could really caught up in this sort of things. She couldn’t just let it go and do something else – it would eat her up inside.
She heard a knock at the door and shouted: “Come in.”
She turned around on her chair and saw Alice coming in with a cup of coffee. Bette attempted a smile, altough feeling very miserable.
“Thanks,” she said when Alice handed her the cup. She took a sip and closed her eyes, trying to relax. No. It didn’t work.
“Something must be really wrong if a good cup of your favorite coffee doesn’t soothe you,” Alice remarked. They had broken up a few weeks ago, but still lived together. Their relationship was purely a good friendship and they were both fine with that. For others, it seemed strange and in a way impossible to live with someone you had just broken up with, but it worked fine for Bette and Alice.
“My internet connection is driving me crazy,” Bette explained. Alice nodded; she could imagine where this was going. “I just can’t seem to get it off my mind. I can’t do anything else until the damn thing works.”
“Do you really need it that badly?”
Bette let out a sarcastic laugh. “You know me, Alice. It doesn’t even matter if I need it or not anymore, it just has to work.”
Alice decided to bring the conversation to another subject.

“Are you still coming to the Planet tonight?”
“No – well, that depends, really.”
“On whether your problem is solved or not.”
Bette nodded. Alice knew her well. She turned around again and did another futile attempt on making a connection.
“Fuck!” she screamed out when it failed again. She was Bette Porter, she never failed. She had absolutely no idea about the insides of computer – or connections, for that matter. But she had to solve it somehow. She also didn’t feel like overpaying someone to fix it for her. She could think of better ways to spend her dollars.