Latency Wars

Sometimes, and it’s been a good while since I’ve realized this, but sometimes I could just stick my sister into a box with some holes and mail her off to some remote island somewhere in the tropics to live off of coconuts and rainwater.

Oh, the exchange went something like this:

A: “Courtney!!!” (I use three to indicate volume, mind you)
C: “What?”
A: “Are you on the internet?!!!” (Oh, what a loaded question)
C: “…Yes…”
A: “GET OFF.”
C: “I’m doing homework…”
A: “WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME BEFORE I STARTED PLAYING THE GAME?!?!?!?!?!!!!!”

“The Game” is an online video game known as “League of Legends”… it’s about as geeky as you might expect. I digress. Frankly, I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to be telling Ashley when I am, and when I am not, doing my homework. My mistake.

Twenty minutes after I was booted from cyberspace:

A: “Courtney!!! Are you ON THE INTERNET?!?!”
C: *sigh* “No, Ashley. I’m not.”

Five minutes after that, and repeat.

Ten minutes after that I go to the bathroom only to hear Ashley barging into my room… my thoughts? ‘Oh, no! Finnick! I’m coming! Be strong, Finnick!’

And lo and behold, there she was, disconnecting my WiFi. I wasn’t using the internet, but my WiFi was on.

C: “Uh, what are you doing?”
A: “Getting you off WiFi.”
C: “Why?”
A: “Because it’s screwing up my game.”
C: “…”

And she marches from the room.

Then, icing on the cake that she always is:

A: (barging, quite literally, into the room) “I just wanted to let you know that, since I disconnected you, my latency has gone from FIVE THOUSAND to forty seven.” And then she marches imperiously from the room.

Latency is, I think, what “League of Legends” measures as lagging. So her statement = I’m going faster no thanks to you.

My mom and I stare at her, stunned.

Five minutes later I tell my mom:

C: “I just wanted to let you know-”
Mom: “Don’t start.”
C: “- that my happiness has gone from five thousand to forty seven since she’s been home.”

I’m going to go post this now… to do so, I must turn on my WiFi… if she catches me, I probably won’t make it back to school… if I don’t show up, you know which name to give the police. I'm a little scared.

ONWARD HO!