Southern Hospitality Ch. 01

"That means it can connect to the internet wirelessly. It still needs to be plugged in to charge. It should have come with a plug."
"Oh." A long pause.
"Hey it worked! Thanks Xx"
He rolled his eyes dismissively and set his phone down, returning to his subscription feed. He had managed to get in a couple more videos without being interrupted but before long, his phone buzzed, again.
"It won't connect to the internet."
He should've seen this coming. He placed his face into the palms of his hands and despaired. Whose idea had it even been to get her a laptop anyway? Who had encouraged her?
"You have to go into network settings, find your network and connect to it."
"I can't find my network?"
"Who's your ISP?"
"ISP?"
He should've seen that one coming a mile off.
"Internet Service Provider, like Comcast or AT&T."
"I don't have one :-("
Ash let out an audible sigh of frustration. He looked at the clock again. Twenty-five minutes since his mom had dropped the ball and dropped him into this hot mess.
"You can piggyback on ours until you get one. We have a good signal, you should be able to connect."
He sent her over the network name and password, it took a little more explaining, retreading the same ground more than once, but she eventually seemed to get the idea.
"Thanks sweetie! Xx"
He shook his head again and set his phone down. It felt like it was going to be a long night.
To his pleasant surprise, his phone remained silent for the rest of the night. Maybe he'd gotten lucky and she'd figured out how to operate her new machine. Though that seemed highly unlikely. Maybe he'd gotten lucky and she'd given up on her whole affair with technology? Somehow he didn't feel lucky.
His evening progressed at least with a semblance of normality. The next few times his phone buzzed, though he felt a pang of fear at checking the cause of the buzz, though thankfully, each time it turned out to just be one of his friends on facebook.
As the evening drew onto into night he let out a yawn, leaning back from his computer as the screens darkened and the noise of his computer, a background hum that he didn't even register faded out leaving him in an eerie silence. He stood and stretched, making his way through to the bathroom to get himself ready for bed.