Technical Difficulties

I really need to check my horoscope and see what in the hell is going on with me this week.  I’m fully devoid of energy and focus.  It just took me twenty minutes to figure out how to get my crock pot going.  Did I mention there’s only one button on that thing?  It’s hardly a high-tech, complicated cooking device.  Twenty minutes?  I think we’ll skip the sudukos today…

Webster has started toying with my emotions.  I think maybe I’ve shouted my undying devotion from too many rooftops.  He’s getting complacent and thinks he’s the boss in this relationship.  Not so, my tiny black friend.  I’m the one with the charger and I’m not afraid to use it.

I tried to explain the predicament to Rocco.  “Now watch.  When I slide the keyboard shut really hard, the whole phone craps out and I have to reboot Webster.”  I proceeded to demonstrate by slamming the phone shut with the heal of my palm.  Sure enough Webster’s screen fizzled a little then went dead.  I pushed the power button and waited for the white Palm logo to appear.

Rocco took the phone from my hand and gently slid the keyboard open.  “And what happens if you don’t shut the phone hard?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“That’s not broken, then.”

I’m a girl on the move, damnit!  I can’t be lollygagging around waiting for my phone’s special needs to be met.  I have a very full calendar and crucially important social commitments, doncha know.  They aren’t going to expand happy hour just because I have to coddle my phone when sliding it shut.  Not broken, my ass.

To exacerbate my all-out-of-sorts-ness, my computer monitor died two days ago.  I left my desk unattended for all of seven minutes to procure more tasty beverage and discard the beverage I’d been accumulating in my bladder.  When I returned, strange things were afoot at my desk.

I was quite captivated, really.  There was something very beautiful about how the light danced across the screen.  Suddenly the whole thing went dark, and only the perimeter lit up.  Next it started to expand and contract as it slowly moved around the screen, a bit like a black and white lava lamp.  Moments later, the entire screen went white, jolting me out of my hypnotic trance.

“This ain’t no kinda good,” I muttered under my breath as I poked at the power button.

Suddenly the screen filled with stripes of all widths and colors.  I pressed the power button again.  The stripes started moving.  Despite my multiple attempts to turn the little bugger off, he just kept right on throwing up new bizarro patterns onto the screen.  I half expected to hear a voice crying, “Number Five is Alive!”

So I did what any gal would; I unplugged the little fucker and waited for Rocco to get home and look at it.  Hours later, Rocco returned home.  I plugged the monitor back in and fired it up.  Rocco walked into the room,took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and said, “Huh.”

“Huh?” I respond.

“Huh.  That looks pretty broken.”

So the next morning, we discuss our plan of action for replacing the giant, flat screen paperweight residing on my desk.  I fire it up again to see if it might have just been a fluke.  Monitors have bad days, too.  Alas, it was still a smorgasbord of colors and patterns with no rhyme or reason.

“That thing is dead,” my dear husband offered in consolation.  “I’ll call my guy and pick a new one up tomorrow.”

So this morning, on a whim, I decided I had to try once more.  I jiggled and reseated every cord I could find.  I unplugged and replugged every outlet in the room, just for good measure.  I tapped my head four times with an eagle feather while spinning counter-clockwise, then bowed to the east and sang the chorus to Black Betty two times.

Son of a bitch if the damn thing didn’t work just fine.

I called Rocco to celebrate my mad technical skills.  “That’s great, Hon,” he responded.  “Thing is, I just picked up the new one fifteen minutes ago.”

Figures.