Ok, so I had a weekend that I’m pretty sure any soap opera would reject as a storyline for being too far fetched. I haven’t been feeling quite well enough to sit down and write the story for you yet, so I thought I would republish an old post to help get you prepared.
It has to do with luck. And my lack of it. And don’t be worried… at this point in my life I laugh about this stuff rather than cry about it, so rest assured they haven’t had to haul me off to the loony bin yet.
Then again, considering I can’t leave the house I’m not sure that would be an option anyway. :)
Here’s the “background” post … I’ll be back with the crazy tale in a day or so.
In the Immortal Words of Jack Nicholson…
[first published: April 30, 2009]
I’m B-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck….
Oh, peeps… I’ve never been so happy to get a FedEx delivery in my entire life! If I would have gone one more day without my own laptop I was going to so closely resemble Jack in that photo that someone would have insisted on doing a remake just to utilize the expression.
From here on out, anytime I let myself get a little down about being homebound I’m going to remember how much more confining it would really be if I didn’t have this amazing technology that lets me be a part of the world while not being out in the world.
I’m lucky to live in the age of technology, people.
And while I’m blessed with technology, I also happen to be the person that causes technology to self-destruct. There have been times I have actually wondered if I give off some sort of electrical vibe that wreaks havoc on appliances.
This time it was the computer… which I knew was dying a slow death, but I was trying to live in denial for as long as humanly possible. The cd/dvd burner had died off awhile ago, prompting me to get an external dvd drive. I had also been using an external hard drive for awhile [photos take up a lot of room] but even with that, the computer kept running slower and slower… sometimes taking up to 20 minutes to restart. Not a good sign. But when the monitor went black, I closed the curtain on this production and went in search of a better alternative.
The craziness happened when I borrowed a friend’s monitor to hook up to the laptop so I could make sure I saved all the important documents. I was working away when I heard a ‘POP!’ and then saw and smelled smoke coming out of the electrical cord. I grabbed the cord to unplug it and – dude – it was HOT. So even though I had already closed the curtain, I still got to see the death scene, and it definitely had my heart racing!
But even that excitement is nothing compared to the worst technology month in history I had a few years ago. It was May, my birthday month. A time when all should be sunshine and flowers, and it was instead full of swear words you’d rather not have me repeat here...
It all began with me being cooped up for months, dealing with pneumonia. I was finally starting to get up and around, and decided I was going to try leaving the house [this was back in the day when I was still driving]. I showered, put on makeup and cute clothes, and was ready to go… only to get to my garage and discover a car that wouldn’t start. A few winter months in the garage led to a dead battery and a seriously disappointed me. But I was determined… I got the car jumped the next day and went out for attempt number two.
Only to get to the end of the parking lot and realize that my tire was nearly flat. Which means my first fun outing in months was to sit in the waiting room at the tire place right after I paid to replace the tire. I was off to a great start…
Until I threw my comforter in the washing machine the next week, and it got caught in some mechanism that caused the rim of the tub to break. I was feeling like a winner at that point. So I had the repair man come fix it, only when he did the repair he failed to hook one of the hoses back on correctly. After he left I put in a load of laundry, went in the other room to work on the computer, and didn’t realize until the water had seeped through the walls and into the room I was in that my house was being flooded.
I’m not talking about a little bit of water here, people. I’m saying when my friend Meg and her son Ben came over to check it out he was having a ball because he could jump in the puddles on my carpet and watch the water splash all about. We waivered between panic and laughter about the ridiculousness of the situation… but mostly we panicked. So, I spent four days at a hotel [days which included my birthday, thankyouverymuch] while a cleaning service set up huge machines to dry out my walls and carpet.
You think that’s the end of it, right? If you do, then you haven’t known me long enough. :) No, after that I got back home, went to use the bathroom and the handle to flush literally broke off in my hands. That prompted me to send out an email to everyone I knew, stating: “My life is seriously going down the toilet. I just wish I had a handle so I could flush it.”
