For a Second We Had to Imagine Life Without Gmail

For a few minutes, the already deprived masses thought that the 21st century comfort gods had taken away Google's services, in addition to the electricity, cell service, and WiFi that Sandy had left them without. According to frantic tweets and DownRightNow.com Gmail, Gchat, Google Reader and other Google things didn't work for about five minutes just before 6 p.m.. At the time, that seemed utterly unfair considering the circumstances of life right now, in which people are forced to huddle around the 21st century fire that is the surge protector. And so, we saw a little bit of a freakout:

But, it turned out to be a false alarm. Or rather, a very short lived emergency. Google is working just fine now. And we have all learned a very valuable lesson: Be thankful for what you have.