Okay, NOW what?

The day started out nicely. I woke up. After that, it gets a little vague. What I do know is that all of those wonderfully working machines that live in my home....didn't. Work, that is. I have no idea why.

Please understand that I am not a repair person. There is no handy wealth of knowledge harboring safely inside my head for any difficulty that might arise. When it was just a can opener, the manual kind, I could fix that. The toaster that occasionally got stuck with a piece of bread, THAT I could handle. (please be sure to unplug the thing first, of course. Learned that one the hard way!) No, those I could deal with easily. These new machines are out to get me! I KNOW it.

First it was that weird dish on the top of our house. I didn't want it clear up there but the guy who installed it said that was the best place for it. There is no way to change it's heading short of visiting the top of the house. Where it points is where it points. Naturally, it had a problem. Could I fix that? Of course not! I am NOT going up on that roof for anyone. That's a whole house too high for me.

In the meanwhile, the usually clear stations that we get on the television were, to say the least, not working well. Of course, this is the time I am about to tape the morning show that I really like. When the picture finally cleared up, there was no point in worrying about the taping. The show was over, naturally. Ah, but yet another show was coming up and the picture was totally clear. Great! I got out the brand new tape, turned on the VCR, in anticipation of enjoying the fact that THIS machine has always been 'true blue'...until now. It ate the tape! I gave up.

At that point, if the day was to be salvaged, I had to do something that was really fun, so I fired up the computer. Did I say FUN? What was I thinking? After booting up (yes, wonder of wonders, I actually do know how to turn the thing on. Its the big blue button on that tower thingummy, right?) and scanning, the usual routine that computers seem to enjoy doing without their masters having to watch over the proceedings, I was ready to get online and surf the net. That is, I would have been ready had the isp been available. Fortunately, the computer has enough sense to continue dialing until it reaches its objective which, I can only assume, is mine as well. Finally, I could open up the browser (I could never totally understand why its called a browser. After all, I am the one doing the browsing, not IT.) and receive my email, most of which is called by the delightful name of spam. What a waste of a perfectly good meal treat transformed into that hideous thing called 'Advertising'. They have made a cuss word out of my lunch! Will it never end?

The answer to that is...apparently not. When I was just to the point of having found exactly what I sought, the red X showed up. You know, the one that says I have absolutely no choice but to shut down the program I am using and reboot? Whoever designed that little feature is laughing hysterically each time it happens to me, I just know it! So, again with the starting up, and the scanning.....but wait. Something else is going on. Since the computer didn't get to shut down in the manner it is accustomed to doing, it requires me to wait until it has scanned every little nook and cranny of its nasty little existence to make certain that the reason it shut down wasn't because of some horrible computer cold or malaria or whatever it is that computers contract when they don't want to do their jobs. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind at all that our computer is snickering behind my back even at this moment. The day wasn't over yet though. After the machine from hell finally got past its third scan, there was a power blink. Yes, you guessed it. I gave up.

Are you aware that books have virtually no interest in doing you in at all? I grabbed a book that I had been intending to read for months. The light of the day had faded. Temperatures outside (and within me) had started to drop ever so slightly. My my, isn't it warm in here? Oh no, not the air conditioner too! As I give up and turn on a fan, the Lord hears me muttering (mostly because my husband, the cat, the dog, and the kids have all heard it before and shut the muttering out) that I am going to thank Him for the day anyway but there WILL be an extra trash pickup in the morning. Or, there may be an investigation if only I can get the UFO people out here to my house.

Gremlins Maybe?

by Lura Langenback