What To Do When The Closest 100' Ethernet Cable Is A Month Away? Make Your Own...

We're living in a new reality. In the last two weeks, so much has changed, and I have a feeling some things will never return to the way they were. Yesterday my neighbor and I struck up a conversation since we're both working from home. He said he went to Costco over the weekend and it was interesting to see what things people go for, what they buy.

Interesting, indeed.

First things people bought--toilet paper, bottled water, and hand sanitizer, at least, that's what disappeared where I live. As the realization of the situation befell us, other things began to disappear from the shelves. I think sociologists are going to have a field day and study this past month for decades to come (and they'll never run out of things to study...).

As time went on, other things began to be in short supply, flour, rice, almost all baking ingredients vanished, at least, that's what disappeared where I live. 

But, what about ethernet cables?

Hadn't thought about that, at all.

Until, I needed one.

My oldest got permission to work from home. Great--more isolation for the family. We had a problem. My son had to be hard-wired to the router (no wifi...) and he had to work away from my work station so we needed an ethernet cable, a long ethernet cable. No problem--we'll just drive down to Best Buy and pick one up.

Problem--the longest cable they had was seven feet--seems everyone was doing the same thing. We needed a hundred-foot cable. We looked on-line--a month's wait. We tried Walmart, Home Depot, Target...nada. When we built the house, we put CAT-5 cable in each room. The problem was, I never put the cable into a box, so there's ethernet cables running throughout my house--we just have to tear open a wall to get to them. I didn't want to do that and I was frustrated.

And then it hit me...

I can make my own.

We bought the cable, the connectors, and a tool to crimp them together. It works beautifully. 

My dad grew up in the Great Depression. They had to make due with what they had. I know my situation is nowhere near what my dad or his generation went through, but for a brief moment, I was able to do something myself, something that helped the family. I think we'll need to do more things like that in our new reality.