When I got up this morning someone or something had switched the cables from my cable modem to my wireless router overnight. I have no other explanation for how it was that I was unable to connect to the internet until after I’d gone down to Radio Shack at about 3:00pm to buy a new router, having given up on the old one.

I got the new one (same as the old one, a Netgear N300), opened the box, and looked at the installation instructions. Thought “why don’t I try this same configuration with the old router first?” So I did. It worked like a charm.

I have no idea how or why the cabling got out of whack, but now I can take the new one down to the store and get my $47.11 back.