Why Fi?

This whole social distancing thing may or may not be making me a little punchy. A few days ago, I set out to buy groceries, and prior to the last few weeks, I had never “set out” like I was f*cking Magellan looking for (she googles “Magellan” to find out what the hell he was looking for) SPICES, although I DID need some turmeric. Something that used to be so easy and pleasurable has become quite the ordeal, especially in Canadian False Spring, which is to say that it’s technically Spring according to the calendar, but according to everything else, it’s still Fool’s Winter, which is when you are a FOOL and don’t dress for the actual weather. And that was me, standing there shivering and wearing vinyl gloves instead of mittens, lining up to get into the grocery store like it was a goddamned roller coaster—in other words, a very long wait, but without the reward of 60 seconds of exhilaration—unless bacon is on sale.

Anyway, I was fine in the store, and got everything I wanted, despite the media hysteria about how we’re all going to be starving and poop-assed. But on the way home, I drove through the same small town that I usually drive though and as I got to the section where the speed limit lowers, the warning light at the side of the road began to flash my speed as I started to slow down. It was a 50 km/hour zone, and for my American friends, I have no idea if that’s like a gazillion miles per hour or (she googles “How many miles per hour is 50 kilometres?”) THIRTY-ONE POINT ZERO SEVEN. And the damn light kept flashing red, even though I was going 54, as if I was Baby Driver or whatnot, and I yelled, “I’m doing my BEST, you passive-aggressive piece of SH*T!! F*ck you!” and I gave the flashing light the finger.

Now, I don’t really believe that an inanimate, solar-powered traffic light can actually be passive-aggressive. I mean, it’s not like it’s a husband who, when you chide him for taking his SECOND nap of the day, later posts an article on Facebook about how great naps are and how people should have at least two every day and no one should criticize them for doing it.  No, it’s not like that at all. And it’s not like it’s a wife who, upon discovering that her husband has spent the afternoon secretly watching a movie that they both wanted to see when he was supposed to be outside gardening, says “Oh, I see. That’s fine. I’m glad to know that the next time I want to watch something that we were both interested in, I don’t have to let you know. No problem.” Noooo, it’s not like that at all.

But my point, and I DO have one, is that people give their wifi extremely strange names. This point may seem to be a complete divergence from what you have just been reading about, but bear with me. As you know, I’m working from home. Last week, I had to change the password on my work computer and when I did, my whole system locked up. I was on the verge of a breakdown, having lost access to just about anything, and I’d been on the phone with one of our lovely secret agency IT guys for over an hour. We were trying to reconnect my VPN and he suggested using my phone as a personal hotspot. “Open your wifi and see if you can find it in there,” he suggested. My phone is known as “Suzanne’s Iphone” which seems pretty human and normal, but then a bunch of other wifis came up and I was like “WTF? You’re allowed to NAME your wifi?!” We have a central router in our house and then three boosters, but they are all just identified by numbers like 560 or 770 (those are fake numbers just in case my neighbours are reading this). But when the list came up, there were things on there like “2BoyzIntheBigCity” and “JaysPad” and I thought for a minute that my life had become a hip-hop video. Who ARE these people? I live in a very small town, and I haven’t seen any funky fresh folks around lately, but those wifi names suggest otherwise. I was intensely curious about this:

Me: Is there anybody in our neighbourhood named Jay? There’s a wifi on here that says “Jayspad”.
Ken: I don’t think so. What’s the name of that new guy across the street? Maybe it’s him.
Me: He doesn’t look like a Jay. I doubt that he has a nice pad.
Ken: What?
Me: You know, like a bachelor pad. My Jay has a funky fresh pad. I’ll bet his living room is all decked out in animal prints and he has a sheepskin rug and a wetbar and those swirling disco lights—
Ken: Ipad. Jay has an IPAD.
Me:
Ken: IPAD.
Me: Stupid Jay.

And then I was sad, because if I’d known I could give my wifi a personalized moniker, it would be known as Player One, OBVIOUSLY. Apparently I could change it if I wanted to but (she googles “How do you change your wifi’s name?”) it’s way too complicated. As for 2BoyzIntheBigCity, I’m fairly convinced right now that it’s the two teenaged brothers across the street being ironic, which I admire them for, almost as much as I admire whoever named their wifi “Nachowifi”. Can I use your wifi? No, because it’s Nachowifi. Passive aggressive, am I right? Yeah, it’s a tenuous link back to the beginning. Fight me.

67 thoughts on “Why Fi?”

  2. I love the idea of naming our wifi. I’d like to do something really funny…that when people read it, they’re like “Oh my God, I want to meet those people! They must be hilarious.” But then I’d have to deal with their disappointment when they realize I’m not as funny as my wifi name. Sigh. Have a Happy Easter! I loved this post!

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  3. I made that theme park ride connection too – this is my facebook post from a few days ago, in warm British sunshine: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158325319432783&set=a.10152353305712783&type=3&theater

    As for our wifi name, well my wife & I met in a school play, we ran a youth theatre group for 5 years & our 2 kids have done degrees in performing arts subjects. So of course our router has the name Wifi Art Thou 😉

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  4. Haha!! We named ours TomSmellsLikeCauliflower a few years ago, waiting to see how long it took out neighbor Tom, who was a friend and an IT guy, to figure it out. Turns out that’s about 6 months. Lol

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  6. The first paragraph of this entry was like the first episode of Deadwood; it was so damn good I had to go over 3 or 4 times before continuing, in case the rest of what I was about to see wasn’t as good as the entry point.

    It was. Deadwood, the series, was as good as Deadwood, the pilot, and “Why Fi?” the post was just as good as “Why Fi?” the opening paragraph. Damn good. Openly cackling throughout.

    I guess this is my long-winded way of saying “Happy Easter, Suzanne!” and “Great post! My new favorite!” but I’m Tom and Tom has a problem just saying anything quickly and departing.

    So, um, don’t die and if you do come back in three days and we’ll party. Happy Easter. Did I already say that?

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  7. I love that my phone occasionally shows other peoples’ wifi networks as I’m riding the bus–or rather did back when I was riding the bus home from work regularly. There’s at least one person who’s named theirs “getoffmywifi” and I remember seeing some unprintable ones. Or rather ones that would be unprintable on a family blog. I guess this is a family blog since you and Ken are family.
    Anyway one day I saw the name “Batman” come up on the list of wifi networks and for a minute I was really excited that I now knew where Batman lived and it was so near me, but then I remembered that, first of all, Bruce Wayne is a billionaire who lives in a castle, and, secondly, Batman wouldn’t so casually give away his location. It must be a decoy, I thought.
    So, yeah, The Joker lives near me.

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  9. My favorite is: ThisIsNotTheWiFIYoureLookingFor. I named ours AllDogsGoToHeaven.

    The best are the passwords that people use.

    “What’s your wifi password?”
    “YoucantUseOurWiFi”
    “I’m a guest in your house, why can’t I use your wifi?”
    “You can.”
    “So what’s your password?”
    “YoucanUseOurWiFi”
    “WTF?”

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  10. Where I currently sit in the North Valley subdivision of Albuquerque, NM, the following WiFi options are available: dragonborn (probably some chubby RPG-obsessed kid who thinks he’d have more game with the ladies were he a dragon); thebarelas (sound like fine folks); yay (my hands-down favorite); filmfrenzy; and shimabi. There is also apparently a family with the last name Chacon who are hogging up the airwaves with a half dozen variations of their last name followed by a number. For the next few days, I shall entertain myself by trying to decipher which of my neighbors belongs to this greedy clan of wifi hoarders.

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  11. I laughed at this because I found the same thing as once in a while I have to reset because our WiFi in the apartments stinks….technical term. Here are three: “hewhomustbenamed” and “bringbeertohear” and “donttouchthisguest”.

    Sent from my iPad

    >

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  12. I wanted to name our wifi “FBI Network”, but my husband said it would only challenge people to hack it, and it would, so we have a standard-issue name from our provider.

    However, we have a neighbour who named her network “Town Babe”, and I’ve always liked how sassy that name sounds.

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  14. I was flabbergasted (it’s a word) to learn that people didn’t know they can name their wifi. At first,I called my wifi Baby (“Hook me up, Baby”). That wasn’t enough – needed to be longer – so I named it NobodyMessesWithBaby. yeah, dumb. It’s since been changed to the OrangeBoyz, who were the two big ginger toms living with me.

    The neighbor’s wifi names include FBI Van, Dieter’s Wifi Network (which made me want to name mine, “AllYouCanEat”), Waldo, NeonNights, PickUpAfterYourDog, and Baker’sSecret.

    I was thinking about renaming mine to Wife-Swappers Anonymous.

    Boy, you made me laugh so much in this post. Thanks. Happy Easter.

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  15. I need tumeric too. I always think I have some, but that’s because I’m thinking about cumin. I have a weird amount of cumin because I keep buying it instead of tumeric.
    My wifi isn’t cleverly named either, and people around here are fairly tame – there’s a Hamsternet but that’s about it.

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  16. I’ve set up a new router twice, and neither time do I remember it letting me name the WiFi…. it just went by the brand name of the company that made it (Belkin, and now Netgear). In checking out what other networks my computer could pick up, I do have a neighbor with one titled “GetYaOwn.” I guess I’m not special enough to have personalized wifi…

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    • Me neither. I know when I was in Toronto, the company let me name it after my dog, but it was a very small company where the technician would text me things like “I’ll be over after the basketball game “, but I doubt the bigger providers would do that!

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  18. Holy crap, I have the laughter tears streaming right now! You are hysterical!!! I remember when our downstairs neighbors moved in, I was very skeptical because they were very young and the apartment had been blissfully vacant for so long; but, when we saw that their WIFI was Dumbledore’s Army, we knew they were going to be ok!!!!! I would tell you our WIFI names, but then I would have to, well, you know the drill as you are a secret agent of sorts!!!!

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  20. Did you watch LOST? If so, do you remember how there were all the Dharma stations with different names…? Like The Hydra, The Arrow, The Swan, The Flame, The Pearl, The Orchid… and others but those are the only ones I can think of right now and that’s probably already too much information. Anyway… my husband changes our wifi name now and then and he uses a different one of those each time. What a nerd, I know.

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    • Yes, Cline is great! Also, it brings me back to to those old games where that’s how you started playing (and where he said he got the title from which is cool). I just think it sounds mysterious and powerful, which is pretty much NOT me, so it’s funny:-)

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  23. Our’s used to be called FBI surveillance van, just to be different, then I saw a meme on Facebook telling others to do it, and was no longer different, so I changed it. You can call your wifi basically anything you want, but from a hacker’s perspective can I suggest that you don’t name it anything that give’s away the fact that it’s yours?

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  24. As mentioned, this isn’t new, but I’m still tempted to name our SSID “DEA Surveillance” just to screw with the neighbors and their “visitors”. Haha.. Ours is TheHowellRanch in honor of our beloved acreage in South Dakota.

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    • At least you always know which one is yours—I have a list of numbers and have to keep in mind which wifi is the one closest to my office and as everyone knows, numbers aren’t my strong suit!

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  25. Bryntin says:

    Hi dangly, just to let you know I did another BLT and I started with this post as my leaping off point. Hopefully you’ll see a pingback link but you know where to find me if yuo want to see where it ended up going!

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  28. I hate the idea of going out in a hazmat suit to wait in line & then maybe not get what I need… am so spoiled… anyhoo, every time I read one of your delightful posts, I picture you doing it standup — maybe one day?

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