Vagina.
Anyway, two things have since happened:
Turns out my cell phone has a built-in modem, which my laptop can use via either USB or Bluetooth. I actually find the whole arrangement pretty cool, except that both cell phones and the telecommunications industry are engineering clusterfucks that send me into a rage. (Nothing pisses me off like stupidity, and there's nothing as monolithically stupid as the phone company. They're worse than the fucking DMV, only with the most fucked up, ass-backwards wannabe "technology" imaginable.)
And I now have working cable again. Hurray! Life is worth living!