This, I was one of those in 56k era. My dad walked to bathroom to piss at 2am and still saw me in front of computer, and boom! cut the rj11 wire into 10 pieces. Next day I bought a new wire, and this time he didn't cut the wire but put a bug on a modem splitter by slightly took off a copper inside a little, it looked like it's connected but it's not. I fixed that. Next time he just told my mom to deal with me instead .. that is a short version of the story.