I was having trouble with my space bar the other day -- allmywritinglookedlikethis -- and on investigation I noticed that there was a ton of dust and crap built up in the keyboard. I turned it upside down and shook it, but that didn’t help. With a tweezers, I was able to dig out a couple of minor fuzzballs, but most of the junk was too tightly lodged to budge.
Then I remembered that you can actually ~remove~ computer keys. So, with my characteristic caution and attention to detail, I started popping off assorted letters and letting them fly randomly over my right shoulder. This worked beautifully: I was able to dig around inside the computer and clean out a couple of years of accumulated crap until the spacebar stopped giving me grief.
Then, came the hard part, which was finding where the keys had landed in the chaos which is my home office. I found the “N”, I found the “L”, I found the “0 / )” – I found all of them, in fact, except for the “> / .”.
I looked and looked. Mrs.5000 poked her head in, saw me on my hands and knees, and asked what was going on. I explained. She helped scan the floor for a while, but eventually we both gave up. Deciding that “it will show up eventually,” I went back to work, punctuating every declarative sentence by sticking a paperclip into the gap left by the missing key. This was, of course, a HUGE pain in the ass.
A few minutes later, I got lucky and noticed my missing “> / .” key on an unlikely little edge. Its trajectory must have been strange indeed, bouncing at several angles to land, just so, on a place you couldn’t have deliberately sent it if you had tried a million times.
And of course, I was delighted! For not only did I have full use of my computer again, but I got to rush into Mrs.5000’s office and utter, for the only time in my life, that classic line of happiness and relief:
Darling! I finally got my period!
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Yes, all of the elation and none of the cramps. Enjoy.
Oh Lord.
You people don't appreciate sophisticated humor.
snort
(But don't you appreciate it more having read Are You There God?)
Although it is true that Margaret was relieved to get her... oh, never mind.
"I was able to dig around inside the computer..."
M5K -- can you not tell the difference between your computer and your keyboard?
Thank you for the virtual Mediterranean vacation, btw!
fingers: is not the keyboard an element of that whole which we collectively call a "computer"? I say it is.
You are welcome!
Your computer can function perfectly well without the keyboard, so the answer is no.
You're welcome, too.
Ooops, I just now realize that you were "you're welcome"ing me for the virtual vacation thank you, and not for enlightening me on the computerness of your peripherals. Sorry.
Words fail me.
fingers: I take issue with your reasoning on two points. Firstly, my computer as such can "function perfectly well," in the sense of directing highly specialized electronic flows, without any number of components (its case, all of its input and output devices, its fan, the screws that hold everything together, its hard drive, much of its memory components) that we habitually and quite logically refer to being part of "the computer," an entity which encompasses all of the above. And yet, my computer can NOT in fact "function perfectly well" without a keyboard, in that I use my computer first and foremost as a vehicle for textual composition, and in that capacity the keyboard is indeed quite integral to the whole.
And you are, as always, very, very welcome.
I guess I told HER!
Not so fast. What you're saying here is that YOU can not function without your keyboard, and not that your computer can not function without your keyboard. So shall we just say that the keyboard is part of Michael5000? Hey, that even SOUNDS like you aught to come with a keyboard attached! Will the 2010 model be out soon? Maybe the 2010 model can work with voice control and skip the keyboard all together!
I think I can be happy with that compromise.
The 2010 model might already be out. I haven't seen Mrs.5000 in a while...
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