Day Three

Monday, January 22, 2018

I got up for school and the internet was still not working.

Except that it was and, now, I know why everyone kept saying the internet itself was fine because now the internet is gone. Trump took it away. I thought I hated Trump before, but I really hate him now.

When I got up, I turned on my laptop to check. I figured it had to come back sometime and, really, I’ve been checking all the time all weekend so, of course, I checked. My google homepage said this:

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

This message brought to you by the free states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey

Even New Jersey.

I wondered who wrote it. It’s really pretty. I want to go to California. Even Washington.

Anyway, that’s what the internet said. Everywhere I checked, netflix, facebook, youtube, everywhere. That was on every page. Obviously, the internet was working even if that’s all that was there.

Then I had to go to school.

School was weird. The teachers tried to act like everything was normal, but there kept being questions about China. And about the poem on the internet. That’s where I found out that it was from the Statue of Liberty. I hadn’t known the statue said anything. I wanted to know why. Why did it say that, but I hate raising my hand to ask questions.

But Olivia’s hand shot right up – she ALWAYS asks questions, everyone hates her for it, which is why I hate asking questions – and she asked it, but the teacher wouldn’t answer. She just said we were in English class, not history, and we weren’t going to talk about that. So I thought it was a poem and we could talk about it because it was a poem, and I almost raised my hand because I really wanted to know, but Emma raised her hand and asked almost the same question and about who wrote it, but Mrs. Stick-up-her-butt still said no.

And that’s how it was all day. No one would answer the real questions we had. Like about the Statue of Liberty and about why California and Washington and New York would put something on the internet that said that and about whether we were in a war with China. Other than the trade war that everyone had been talking about for months and blaming China for why everything was costing so much.

After lunch, Trump came on TV. It was a live broadcast. He wanted everyone everywhere to watch it which made me wonder if my parents were being able to watch it, because the TV at home wouldn’t work because we didn’t have an antenna, and there were no TVs where my dad worked. But they heard it because it was on the radio, too.

And Trump said he turned off the internet.

He said we had to be protected from those rebellious states and thoughts and he couldn’t have them putting stuff like that on the internet because only he knew what was good for the United States and he wasn’t going to have that kind of stuff out there for people to see.

He said he would make a new internet and it would be beautiful. Then he talked about twitter. A lot. And he was mad that some people would ruin everything for everyone because they wouldn’t do what they were told. And that he was going to make a big, new, beautiful internet.

But, until then, we would all have to use our TVs so everyone should go buy antennas and he was going to make sure that there were plenty of TV antennas for everyone and it was going to make so many jobs.

So I was mad that my parents voted for Trump because he said awful things and did awful things, but my parents said I just didn’t understand but that I would when I got older and that he would be better as a president and I should just wait and see. But he hasn’t been better as a president; he’s been worse, and even they complain about the things he says and does all the time now.

AND NOW HE TURNED OFF THE INTERNET AND I HATE HIM!!!

Because when I got home, I found that instead of the blank screens I had been getting, I was getting that screen you get when the internet is down. The one with the little dinosaur that let’s you play that stupid game. And now there is no reason to check for the internet anymore, because I know that it’s gone.

At least until we get the internet that Trump says he’s going to build, but I expect that that is going to go about the same as the wall that he still is talking about but isn’t happening, either.

Dad spent all evening out trying to get an antenna for our TV, but no one has any. He said he might be able to make something out of a clothes hanger, and Mom spent an hour looking for one, including ransacking my closet. I told her I didn’t have any wires ones and that I would look, but she wouldn’t let me or even listen to me and shoved my stuff all around. It was rude, and, like I said, I didn’t have one. She couldn’t find one in the whole house, so we still don’t have any TV, either.

I feel depressed and don’t know what to do. There’s nothing to do. Except, I guess, read. Is that what people used to do before there was TV and the internet? I can’t even listen to music because Mom has the stupid news on the radio ALL the time, but all they do is say the same things over and over again without ever actually saying anything. THEY can’t even answer the question about whether we are in a war with China. Or what it means that that poem was in the internet and why those states said that.

Tomorrow, I guess, I need to go buy some books. Or go to the library. All I can find here are mom’s stupid romance things, and that’s not what I want to read about.

I want to go to California. I bet they have the internet.