Mongolian Internet

''This is a real story that happened to me a while ago. All of the events posted here are true, except for the names of my buddies. They have been changed to protect privacy... or something.''

Usually after school I don’t do anything but lounge around my house and browse the internet. I’m not an athletic type of kid, nor am I very popular. I just spend my time trying to get good grades, playing video games, and fucking around on news sites. Life would be fairly lonely if I just isolated myself in my room every day, and it was. My mother and father both worried about me for a couple of years, since I would shut myself in my room for hours on end after coming home from school, not even taking the time to get out and say hello when they got back from work. I had a bit of an addiction. I didn’t do anything but sit in front of my computer. Lately I’ve been getting back into the groove of real life, trying to hang out with friends I make at school or getting involved in the community. Anyways, that’s not what I’m writing about. No one gives two shits what grades I get or what issues I have in my family.

I made a few friends online after a couple of years. I used to have upwards of 10, but nowadays that’s condensed to around four or five that I actively talk to and enjoy talking to. I have more people I see on a day-to-day basis online, but I don’t talk to them unless I need to. Me and my chums have a Skype group set up where every Friday we make a call and talk about stuff going on, like new TV shows or music we enjoy. It’s kind of nerdy, I admit, but that’s alright. My friends’ screen names are Pakky, Robomatic0085, Aerosmithfan2, and CRS. I refer to them as Pak, Robo, Aero, and… CRS, I guess. They’re weird names, but who am I to judge? Everyone has their own style.

They’re all good people, and we get along fairly well. Most of the time we have arguments it’s over silly things, like if someone really got addicted to drugs at the end of their career or whether Linux is better than Mac. This isn’t what you’ve come to read, though. I’m probably boring you with all this shit.

Skype isn’t the most reliable of programs. It’s admirable in its processes, and it works relatively okay, but it sucks up a lot of CPU on my craptop and it cuts out now and again. My internet isn’t the issue, it’s just the service itself. Now and again everyone’s voices goes through this robot filter where it’s choppy and every single sound is super pronounced. Other times we can’t even make the calls because Skype is too busy jacking it and eating Cheetos with the other hand. We’ve tried out other programs, but we’ve never stuck to them as often as Skype. It’s stupid of us, I know, but… oh well.

One particular night it was raining sort of heavy outside, so I was afraid my internet would cut out at any second and I would be left out of the hubbub. So far everything was going fine, but I kept on telling everyone that if I left to stop talking and wait for me to come back. They all responded something along the lines of, “Oh sure, jackass, we’ll just put our conversation on hold and wait for you again.” I told them they were absolutely hilarious and we kept having our discussion. Unfortunately, right when we got to a good argument about whether or not the CD-i sucked more ass than the Sega CD, the power cut out for a couple of seconds. This meant out router got taken offline. No router meant no internet. No internet meant no Skype call.

I swore up and down, swore at my pet gerbil, swore at my carpet, swore at my Terminator poster, even my own reflection. I was really pissed that night, and I don’t recall why. After a few moments I remember going back to my computer when I saw the internet was back and trying to rejoin the Skype call. No matter what I did, though, I couldn’t join. It wouldn’t even give me an error message or anything, it would just… drop the connection. Annoyed, I typed into the chat:

   

Selto854: Hey guys, I can’t connect to the call, internet bombed. So what’s the verdict?

There was a pause, and I could tell my friends on the other sides were all collectively sighing to one another and choosing who would type the nitty-gritty details into the chat. We were fucking nerds, okay?

   

Aerosmithfan2: Hey

Aerosmithfan2: The verdict is not solid

   

I guess I could accept it. Aero was a weird choice for them to choose, she hated typing into the chat. Maybe she was just feeling like a good samaritan, helping out her poor, crippled pal enjoy the discussion.

   

Selto854: So, like I was saying, the CD-i had some really shitty games, but sometimes the Sega CD wouldn’t even work. At least the CD-i was functional.

Pakky: If you say so

Aerosmithfan2: Yeah, we’re onto something else

Selto854: Okay, what’s shaking?

   

There was another long pause. A couple of minutes went by. I considered just backing out of the discussion altogether, since I could be doing better things than hanging out in a broken Skype call. What’s the point if I can’t even hear the others? Finally, I saw that Pakky was typing, and immediately after that Aero started typing too. Strangely enough, Robo also joined in, and as far as I knew he had left the Skype call a half hour ago. The messages were received almost simultaneously.

   

Pakky: Cool games

Aerosmithfan2: Cool games

Robomatic0085: Cool games

   

I definitely thought it was awkward how they were talking to me. I thought maybe if I brought it up they would say they were just fucking with me.

   

Selto854: Why did you guys just quit talking about the CD-i and Sega CD

Selto854: And why are you typing all weird

Selto854: Is this what I get for my internet being Mongolian?

   

Another long, long pause. I decided it was time to leave. I wouldn’t get anything out of the discussion, and I could’ve just chewed them out tomorrow. I started closing the other programs I had open, just to see if they would post anything before I hopped off. Lo and behold, when I returned to Skype, I saw this message:

Robomatic0085: Later, gaylord

   

That was definitely weird, since I hadn’t made any mention I was leaving. I thought about typing something into the chat, but decided against it. They would probably just take another hour or two to answer anyways. Disappointed, I closed the laptop and started watching TV.

   

The next day I hopped onto Skype and saw that Robo was online, and Pakky was away. CRS hadn’t been on in a while, and I guess Aero was at band practice or something stupid like that.

Selto854: Hey guys, what was up with last night?

A couple of minutes passed.

Robomatic0085: What do you mean?

Selto854: You guys were acting like retards

Selto854: More than usual, if you can believe it

Selto854: Almost got type-7 cancer

Robomatic0085: What are you talking about? You didn’t seem to care when we were talking about old movies

Selto854: Yeah but I mean after that.

   

There was an audible hush in the chatroom. Robo was typing, but then it stopped. It picked up again a few moments later.

   

Robomatic0085: I left immediately after that, remember? What’re you thinking of?

Selto854: Yeah, I thought so too, but you started talking after a little bit

Selto854: I guess you came back and I couldn’t tell? I disconnected because Mongolian internet is Mongolian

Robomatic0085: Nah, I left for good. Maybe you’re thinking of Pakky

Selto854: No, man, I specifically remember you calling me gaylord

Robomatic0085: That’s a good one but I’ve never even said it before

   

A little confused, I scrolled up the chat logs. Sure enough, Robo was there calling me gaylord and everyone else’s weird behavior was there. I took a screenshot, annoyed. I didn’t get why Robo was acting like such a loser.

   

Image file sent.

Selto854: maxresdefault

Selto854: See? Shows it right there

   

A theme I was running into was pausing. There was a lengthy amount of time before Robo responded.

   

Robomatic0085: Uh, I didn’t do that.

Selto854: dafuq u mene

Robomatic0085: That wasn’t me. You probably just renamed Pakky Robomatic or something stupid like that to get a rise out of me.

   

Even more irritated now, I started typing a bit more quickly.

   

Selto854: what reason do I have to lie about this

Selto854: You did this, don’t try to keep the joke going

Robomatic0085: … okay, sure.

   

After that, I tried prodding Robo a bit more to see what the shit was going on, but I didn’t get anything out of it. I guess I had to wait for Pakky to get on, or for Aero to dig her thumb out of her ass and type… or come back from band practice. Whatever it was. After a couple of hours, I saw a notification that Pakky sent a message.

   

Pakky: Yeah I just scrolled up and I don’t recall him calling you gaylord. Nice try dude but it’s not working

Pakky: I didn’t type cool games either

Pakky: 0/10 worst lie ever

   

This was definitely kind of unnerving now. I told Pak to send a screenshot. He could delete his messages, but he couldn’t delete Aero’s or Robo’s. After a minute or so he sent a file over for me to see. The picture made me shake a little bit… There wasn’t any activity in the chat until today, when Aero was telling Pak that she was leaving for a bit. Prior to that, it was just the call. But right here on my screen I saw the entire exchange from last night… What happened?

I tried explaining my stance on this to the others, but they weren’t having it. They kept saying it was just some joke to make up for my internet being shitty. I tried everything to convince them--screenshots, experience, my memory--and nothing worked. Eventually the topic of the chat shifted but I was still stuck on what happened. No one commented anything, but there were still posts on my computer. Why? What the hell had happened?

To this day I still can’t find out anything on what happened that night. This happened almost a half a year ago, and I still have no explanation. This hasn’t ever happened to me before, and I also looked up the occurrence to see if anyone else reported anything similar… but it drew up blanks. Since then we’ve migrated from Skype to a different client, and I’m glad we have. The entire experience was creepy, and I’d rather not experience that again. So, to everyone who managed to read this far and not have their brains leaking out of their ears... What the fuck happened?

Written by Selto854