Yes, I do believe that's more like it. Sorry, Frances.

This was extraordinarily bad. Laboring as I was under a workload that would crush Job's back into jelly (question -- did Job ever have a job? What was Job's job?), I desperately needed unfettered telephone access. I needed to download, upload, bridge the communications gap. I needed copper wires, optical fibers, coaxial cables. This stupid hotel didn't even have two tin cans and a piece of string.

"I've discovered that it's important not to let calm and clear-headed logic get in the way of throwing a total hissy fit"

What to do? During times of crisis, I've discovered that it's important not to let calm and clear-headed logic get in the way of throwing a total hissy fit. There will be a time for rational analysis later. First, break something. Nothing big, maybe just a coffee cup or a hotel clerk's arm. Next, you'll want to move into bemoaning your wretched fate with keening howls of despair. If things still don't seem to be going your way, try setting something on fire, like maybe a couch or just a scooter. Burn clean your despair in a catharsis of purifying flame.

Kristanne, however, is not as avid a proponent of this system of crisis-management as I am. So, while I attempted to get the hotel desk clerk in my patented Grim Faced Hammerlock so as to squeeze some sense into his nattering skull (on crutches, no less!), Kristanne calmly apprised the hotel manager of the direness of our plight, informing him that she expected him to pay for us to stay at a hotel with a telephone until they fixed their own.

And that was all it took. The hotel manager, after peeling the desk clerk from my icy clutches, politely directed us to a back office with a working telephone where I could merrily tranfer my bits and bytes back to the waiting computers in California.

see also... *Direct from Sardinia *Takin' care of business *Extreme Sardinia *Wind & ice cream *Sardinia quiz *A Sard Feast *Sardinia region *Travel Forum

The only down side to this arrangement was that the hotel office with the telephone resided on an outcropping of alpine rock soaring high above the valley where our little room was nestled. So, twice a day, I crutched me and my laptop up a staircase of positively Himalayan proportions so as to get my work done. I did this with neither bottled oxygen nor Sherpa support (though I did have a small cache of salami laid in at a base camp about halfway up). Sir Edmund Hillary ain't got nothing on me.

The above is an excerpt from the Extreme Telecommuting Web site, where travelogues bear absolutely no resemblance to any you've ever read before. Sid and his wife Kristanne believe that the Digital Age facilitates telecommuting and that if one is going to telecommute, one might as well do it from places one has always wanted to go! They are living this philosophy and have the travel writing to show for it. We at virtualitalia.com are completely in love with their site, which offers no-holds-barred impressions of Italy and a marvelously refreshing writing style. To read more about Sid and Kristanne's trip to Sardinia, visit this page.

Many thanks to Sid and Kristanne for their kind permission in letting us offer this excerpt to virtualitalia.com readers!