The Internet Tragedy

Thursday, March 31, 2016- AP English News. Chaos erupted last Monday when the world’s favorite search engine, Google, went down for twenty-four hours.

Authorities are still investigating the cause for the biggest scare since the 1929 stock market crash. Americans sat by and watched as productivity ground to a halt.

“I was in my office, and whenever I typed ‘Google’ into the search bar, it wouldn’t come up,” one bystander said. “Honestly, it terrified me.”

The situation was worse elsewhere. People starved in their homes as they lost the ability to Google recipes and how to cook food. One Texas neighborhood lost half of its population throughout the day. Elsewhere, starvation led to worse. An entire neighborhood in Missouri burned down after residents attempted to turn on their stoves in order to feed themselves. No one knew the difference between cooking ramen and burning it.

Inside the houses (or what was left of them), bodies were found draped over computers, where, in their dying moments, they had attempted to Google how to cook. In one house, a frozen pizza was lying on the counter, unopened.

Recent comments from the governors of those states have called the entire event ‘Unfortunate.’ Cleanups are being organized in the affected areas. The volunteers say that their first goal is ‘to find any orphans or dying people in the area and move them to treatment.’

Others were faced with less deadly but no less serious events. The US witnessed a rise in people who were unable to dress themselves. With the Youtube makeup tutorials unresponsive, many women walked outside sporting the equivalent of clown makeup. Men accidentally strangled themselves while trying to tie their ties. Other less socially conscious individuals showed up for work wearing their pajamas.

Several of the new members of the workforce are organizing a lawsuit against Google for not preparing them for the first day of their jobs sufficiently.

Bob Phillips is one of them. “Google wouldn’t let me search ‘How to overcome nerves’ or ‘What not to do on the first day of your job,’” Phillips claims. “It needs to pay for the stress it has caused new members of society.”

The number of untreated illnesses also rose on Monday. “Without the ability to Google symptoms,” one self-diagnosed stomach cancer patient says, “Others could be unable to find treatment.” Indeed, many died later in the week from rashes or diseases that remained undiagnosed without the aid of Google. When asked why he didn’t consult a doctor, one survivor shook his head. “Google is a wonderful resource for those of us who don’t want to take time out of our schedules to go to the doctor. The internet has such a wealth of information and with self-diagnosing as accurate as ever, I thought ‘why not?’.”

Perhaps the most devastating effect was the world’s inability to ask dumb questions to the expanse of the internet. Instead of consulting Google, people were forced to turn to their neighbors in order to ask questions such as ‘When is Mom’s birthday?’ and ‘How do I take 12 selfies at once?’. One husband spoke to his wife for the first time in five years when he asked her “Where is Hawaii?” Even some cats are becoming restless after losing the ability to Google things such as ‘asoiflkdip;dslsjas’ or ‘pljkhuhgftdesswa’ and connect with the human world.

We received the opportunity to meet with some Google developers last Tuesday. The downtime left many of them with gray hair and breakups with significant others. One called the downtime ‘a horrible accident’ and delivered the following message.

“Google apologizes for the inactivity on Monday. We are working on getting our service up and running without crashes. For the time being, we will send some employees to local event centers, where you can ask them questions to your heart’s consent.”

Some other Google employees were ready to quit after the event. “My wife is filing for divorce,” one admits sadly. “She said that if I can’t help her search for funny cat videos, I have no place managing our taxes.”

Google is temporarily working, and remaining employees assure the search engine will receive a major update by Friday.

Down the street from our meeting with Google was the headquarters for Bing. Unaffected by Monday’s crash, they continued their normal business. Company reports indicate no significant increase in their site’s traffic.