Ruh roh -- what to do when the tubes are clogged and Gmail is down? First: breathe.
Have you achieved proper air circulation? Excellent. Now check out our list of humble suggestions for your post-care treatment.
1. Immediately flood Twitter with tweets alternately proclaiming "Gmail is down!" and inquiring "Is Gmail down?" Gmail being down is only made funnier by bringing Twitter down with it.
2. Once Twitter is down, the next logical recourse is Facebook. Make sure your status update reads something like "With Gmail down, I've lost all sense of social connection. Feel like I'm living in a cave." Make the rounds to your friends' profiles and like their Gmail related statuses.
3. All 3 services down? Good. Now just sit quietly at your desk hitting F5 over and over again in 3 open browser tabs. Rinse, repeat.
4. Find your phone. Yes, it's come to that, people. Don't make any voice calls with it, because that's gauche. SMS only, please. If you simply have to hear the sound of a human voice, that's what Skype is for.
5. Go outside! There's nothing left for it. Our cozy technosphere bubble has been burst by this point. Go look for someone to harass on the street in person and ask them what URL shortener they use.