You’ve just done the usual monthly subscription. A few hours of texting and navigating the Instagram explore page, and three Youtube videos later, you get the dreaded text message from your ISP in the different variations they come. You are out of data, and because they are not running a charity, you’ve been cut off the internet. Because capitalism sucks, everything goes downhill from here and you are left to figure out how to get back to civilisation. But before you do, you may go through any or all of these phases:

You realise how much games suck

With boredom looming, the first thing you try to lean back on is the games you have installed on your phone. But a couple of minutes in, you realise that they can only do little for you, especially if you have the kind of games that require you to pass a level before you go to another.

By the time you are still stuck on one level after five tries, the boredom becomes full-blown. Twitter will never treat you as though you’re garbage, but the games will, and that’s why they suck.

Your gallery sends you into a fit

Not quite ready to face the truth yet, you turn to your gallery. Those fire pictures and videos you have of yourself living your best life are now a mashup of moments when you had it together – time you cannot go back to. Two things will probably happen here; you either delete some photos or you fling your phone away in exasperation. 

You begin to notice the most obscure things

You are one minute close to being irritable now, but to put your mind off it and hold on to scraps of your vibrant energy, you begin to pay attention to the funniest and weirdest things; the tiny mole on one part of your cheek, the design of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the depressing space of the room you are in, and stuff like that.

You realise how much your life sucks

You’ve now realised that you hardly have friends when you are offline. And nobody cares about you if there is no green dot next to your name. You are not sure how it’s going to happen now, but you couldn’t continue living like that. You need to get back to your friends and how they fill the void in your heart.

You finally realise that your mother may be right after all

During this trying period of your life, you think back on what your mother likes to tell you every time she sees you on your phone “This phone will kill you.” Not that she means it, but you start to wonder if there is some truth to it because now you’re ready to risk it all so you can get back online. Like a wise woman once said, ” No leave, no transfer.”

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