When VPN is the Devil!

Here I am testing, and testing, and testing my code to troubleshoot issues that connect to other service API's. It starts to seem that every solution I try doesn't work. One in the hundred should work; right!? Everybody says there's a solution, but it's not working and it HAS to work. Everything I try results in absolutely no changes in the outcome. I'm starting to go insane. Hours later and feeling no closer to a solution then at the start......something different happens. My wifi starts getting wonky so I decide to reboot my service. In that process I disable my always running VPN with the intention of bring it back on, but first I need to eat some chocolate to soothe my hanger. In my distraction of the sugar rush I forget to turn my VPN on and rerun my last made test that previously failed. (because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results). With the last ounce of my sanity, I blink....suddenly the stars align, the gods smile upon me, and a baby unicorn is born....BAM, the test actually works! I try it again and it works. Again and it works. Again, successful. I'm dumbfounded. I didn't know why it wasn't working before and I don't know why it's working now. I go through my checklist of setup and it's all the same as I've had for a 1,000 failed tests but now the test is successful. Then it dawns on me. The one variable that's different. The one variable that I KNEW has been a culprit before......THE VPN IS OFF! Yea, excuse me while I scream silently into a pillow. -_-