I’ve been hacked. Well, I haven’t personally been hacked. No hooded assailants wielding hacksaws and machetes have lopped off any of my limbs. To be more specific, my website has been hacked. It no longer exists, which means hundreds of hours of work were all for naught.

I started my site, www.spbroundup.com, last October. In truth, I worked diligently on it for months and then lost interest in it. It’s a site for self-published authors to display their books. I still think it’s a great idea. The authors who listed their books seemed to love the site. But it was a lot of work for one person, especially since that person has a lazy bone in place of a spine.

I kept meaning to get back to it. I told myself that I definitely would, once I found a full-time job, got a passport, lost 15 pounds, started jogging, and weeded my garden. Definitely then. “Then” turned out to be too late when my brother informed me that my site was gone and in its place was an announcement that someone at the David Geffen School of Medicine was using my URL, and that his information would be posted “eventually.”

What? My first reaction was to find the guy who stole my site. His name was provided in the announcement, along with his school. But then I figured that he would hardly give me his name if he were the site stealer. My husband told me that I should alert the Secret Service; they have a cyber crimes unit. What I ultimately did was tell my neighbor. He had helped me get my site up and running, so I figured he’d know what to do. He told me to contact my website’s host.

I did, via email because they don’t have a phone number (!), and they provided detailed instructions on what to do to fix the problem, as well as a heartfelt wish that all went well. Again, what?

Aren’t website hosts supposed to be more helpful than that? The detailed instructions they sent were Greek to me. I informed the host of that and was told that I might need to hire a web developer. They fervently hoped, however, that I wouldn’t write the site off as forever lost. I’ll tell you one thing, if I ever get my site back, I’m going to start speed-dating web hosting companies. Then I’m going to pack up my host’s belongings in boxes and throw them out the window onto the lawn. This relationship is over.

But, back to the present. You know how it’s said that you don’t miss something until it’s gone? That statement is pretty idiotic, in my opinion. Of course I didn’t miss my site when I had it. But I did neglect it and take it for granted. Now, it’s gone and all I want to do is have it back. I imagine hours of joy and fulfillment working on it and making it the best it can be. But it might be too late. Maybe the expression is that you don’t appreciate something until it’s gone. That would make more sense.

My helpful neighbor gave me the name of his coder, a guy who will probably be able to help me reunite with my site. I think I will also contact the Secret Service, though. Having a bunch of men in black, wearing ear pieces and sunglasses pull up to my house in black government cars would be interesting and exciting. I know I’ll miss them when they leave. Maybe I’ll offer to go with them to hunt down my cyber criminal. I know one thing for certain: if I catch him, I will be wielding a machete and a hacksaw.