It’s happening again. The battle between my Inner Brat and some more rational part of me.

(Note: Anything in italics is only said in my head. I may be crazy, but I do not have vocal conversations with myself.)

Inner Brat: Stupid, Chinese internet service.

Mature Adult: Be reasonable. Internet trouble happens in the U.S. too.

Inner Brat: Yeah, yeah. But you can count on it being twice as difficult here in China as it is in the U.S.

Mature Adult: Now hush. That is not necessarily true. Remember when we were in the U.S. this summer and we called Digititis.nitwit? They told us it would be 15 days before anyone could come out and help us with the problem. Even I, the Mature Adult, had a problem with that one.

Inner Brat: Oh. Yeah, good thing one of those smarty-pants teenagers figured out what the problem was and fixed it.

Mature Adult: So see? It’s not just a China thing.

Inner Brat: Okay, I hear ya.

Yay! Mr. Hot Stuff is home!

“So Mr. Hot Stuff, what did they tell you at the ‘internet store’?”

Mr. Hot Stuff: They said we needed to pay the bill.

Mature Adult: Um, pay the bill?

Mr. Hot Stuff: Yes, we needed to pay the bill.

Inner Brat (inwardly): You mean the bill that KaChing, the money mama at work, was supposed to take care of?

Mature Adult: Take it easy, Brat, yelling your thoughts at Mr. Hot Stuff would be displacing your anger and very unproductive at this time.

Mature Adult: So when did they say we’d have internet again?

Mr. Hot Stuff: They said in about three hours.

Mature Adult: Okay, that’s good then.

Arctic Boy (confused): So did we ever even get a bill for the internet?

Level-Headed Mother: Oh. No, that bill goes to KaChing, so she can take care of it, since The Company covers our internet.

Arctic Boy: Oh. Okay. (He gives a glance that communicates strongly with Inner Brat.)

Mature Adult: Now don’t go getting all smug about this, Brat. You know very well that this could have played out the same way in the U.S. with Mr. Hot Stuff in charge of the bill.

Inner Brat: True. At least before we discovered automatic bill-pay with the bank.

Mature Adult: Which they don’t have in China. That we know of.

Inner Brat: SEE! It’s all China’s fault!