You are at a party with BBS people, and you find the computer and log on. You logon and are truly disappointed if a letter you had hoped would be answered...isn't.

It ruins your day when you browse the person you sent the letter to and they have no messages.

You're out of town on vacation and the thought of BBSing crosses your mind. You have a "smiley face" in your handle.

You use a handle.

You change your handle to match the theme of a holiday.

You take everything you read in a pub seriously.

Your love life is dependent upon BBSing.

You feel you're making a statement by signing your name in an anonymous pub. You complain about posts.

After calling boards for awhile, you change your availability status to "Separated" even though you are still married.

You make an endearing reference to another BBSer in your handle or location. You're annoyed that the kids want to use the computer to play an educational game.

You turn on the computer BEFORE you make the coffee in the morning.

You realize your kids KNOW what you mean when you say "uh huh" (even if it's..no, you can NOT go to Janey's house)

You leave all your notes to family and friends on the BBS, such as "Hi, going to the store, brb" or worse: you find yourself leaving a real note on the fridge. that says "brb, had to run, TTYL <<hugs>> :)"

You have several "hot keys" or macros defined in your comm program that transmit multi-color renderings of trite sayings.

Your computer goes down on a Sunday and you start calling computer repair shops out of the Yellow Pages when everyone's closed.

You prefer to think of your daily online time in minutes, even though it equals 5 hours.

Your ALT, D, :, and ) keys have an uncleanable gray film built up on them! You've gotten so good at speed redialing into busy BBS's that you figured out how to use your modem to redial Ticket Master the day a big concert's tickets go on sale!

You open a BBS account for your one-year old just to be "cute".

You turn on your computer immediately when you walk in the door, so it'll be all warmed up and ready when you get through with your "right after getting home" rituals.

You become a SysOp.

You break up with your significant other because suddenly there's all these people of the opposite sex to talk to.

Suddenly the prospect of adding a second phone line doesn't seem as expensive as you once thought.

You think "Get a life!" is a clever retort.

When someone calls you a nerd, you think "You're here too so you're just as much of a nerd as me!" is a clever retort.

You often change your location in the "Who's Online" listing to express your particular mood at the time or to indicate that something you feel is a noteworthy event has taken place in your life.

Your AUTOEXEC.BAT file calls your comm program.

You type TM from the DOS prompt, get an Abort, Retry, or Fail? and have heart seizure.

You've asked and asked until you've finally learned how to type extended ASCII characters and you immediately include them in your handle. ...and you think it's cool.

Your script automatically takes you into an open forum when you log on. You're actually PROUD of the fact that you've been doing this since the days of acoustically-coupled modems.

You log in "Just to check your mail" and realize you spent 2 hours online. If you are female, you enter a state of mild euphoria when your mailbox fills while suppressing the thought that the reason that happened is because the male/female caller ratio is about 50 to 1.

The only reason you're not logged on here is because you're logged on somewhere else.

You wake up at 2 in the morning to go to the bathroom and figure, "what the heck, I'll just see who is up"!

You can't be satisfied holding one intelligent conversation, but feel the need to initiate or be involved in multiple /p's, even though that means holding several lame, often tiresome exchanges that go nowhere.

You install a second modem in your computer so you can be online at two boards at once.

You're online for hours on end just staring at your monitor screen in the hopes someone you know will log on (so you can exchange a dozen or so unmeaningfull lines back and forth..and then wait for hours on end until someone else you know logs on) (even though you have things you SHOULD be doing..like housework, home projects, feeding the dogs, taking care of the wife, etc)

You feel amused and smugly satisfied over a post you just made.

It makes you late for work cause you just HAD to make that one last post. You keep re-reading your posts looking for any responses to it... and then get mad and upset when there is a response to it that is slightly uncomplimentary.

You have are late for an important date because you just had to log on and read the pubs before you go.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.