Amy refreshed the page. How can this be? She thought. It had been four hours, and just 72 people had liked her selfie. She refreshed her page again. Still 72.
Assured that something was wrong with the internet, she barged into her brother’s room and asked him to fix it. “A can of coke from the fridge and maybe I’ll help,” said Brian, his eyes on the computer screen and fingers furiously clicking away. Amy angrily paced out of the room. Her next stop was towards the kitchen where her mother had been slogging since morning. A complaint was lodged and her mother promised to look into Brain’s behaviour right after she was done with the dinner and the dishes.
A phone call to dad was in order. Within five minutes, it was made clear to him that it was nothing less than a calamity that the internet had stopped working. After promising to call the network provider, her dad cut the call. He had been working overtime for a while now.
Relieved she had done all that she could, Amy went back into her room and hit refresh. There were 75 likes. The internet was fine and the number of likes had gone up, yet she wasn’t happy.
“Amy, Brian, dad is home and dinner is ready,” called her mother. “Finally!” grumbled Amy as she dragged herself to the dining table.
As they all sat down to eat, her mother served them dinner with a smile and dad asked about their day, Amy looked at both of them and wondered. Why is mum smiling? Isn’t she tired? And what is dad so upbeat about? Isn’t he working overtime?
Why am I unhappy when I actually have everything?
“Maybe I’m not doing something right,” she said out loud. Everyone gave her an amused look. She smiled and shrugged it off. Tomorrow will be different, she decided.
Next day, she had to nag Brian for an hour, but she finally got him to play catch with her and have that long due brother-sister talk. Later in the day, she helped mum in the kitchen and surprised dad at dinner with a plate of his favourite mashed potatoes.
She went back to her room and refreshed the page again. This time, she didn’t look at the number of likes.
She didn’t have to as she was already happy.