A story with a (so far) happy ending.

I was happily computing along last night here at my desk when I was called away to check on another computer here in the house.  After working with the other computer I realized that I needed to get back on my machine to check a few things so I came back to my desk.  I wheeled my chair around and the unthinkable happened.  I knocked over my main machine (which sits on the desk)….right over and on top of …. of all things… my company laptop which sits on another desk next to my main machine.  There is a couple of inches of difference in height between the desks, so it gave the desktop machine all that much more PUNCH when it hit the laptop broadside.  The laptop was open and running.  Of course it was!!  But you see, you don’t know the best part.  Backing up a little…..  In May I was diagnosed with diabetes so I don’t drink sugary drinks like cola’s or koolaid.  I think the liberals drink  kookaid…(yes, I meant to say kookaid).  Ok.. back to the present……  I had a VERY LARGE plastic cup of Crystal Light (fruit punch) sitting on the desk BETWEEN the desktop machine AND the laptop.  You can see where this is going eh?  Yes, the desktop machine hit the large plastic cup of Crystal Light…..which ceremoniously dumped itself right into the laptop.  As Shaggy on the old Scooby Doo cartoon would say, “ZOIKS!!!!”  At first I didn’t realize the drink had been dumped and I was scared to death to pull the desktop off the laptop cause I just KNEW it had smashed the screen on the laptop.  Then I saw the drink running everywhere on the desk and onto the carpet.  (Wow…what a stain that left behind)  That’s when I got REALLY scared for the laptop.  I picked up the desktop and put it back over on the other desk.  (I still can’t believe I hit it that hard with the chair)  The laptop screen looked ok but the keyboard was “drowning” in a pool of fruit punch Crystal Light.  Terrific…….   I reached up and turned the laptop off.  What else could I do?  The laptop was docked in a docking station so I popped it out of the station and tipped it up on one corner.  Crystal Light ran everywhere.  I was past “ZOIKS” to “Oh…man……” 

So now, my poor wife and son are trying to help me clean up the mess.  They ran and got paper towels and carpet spray etc.  My dogs are looking at us like we are crazy.  I was literally sick to my stomach.  I wiped down the keyboard (for all the good I figured it would do) and continued to allow the drink to drip out of the computer.  I tried to figure out what to do next.  Turning it back on was NOT an option.  I pulled the hard drive and the DVD drive out of it and set them to the side along with the battery.  I removed the battery because I didn’t want any kind of power to the computer.  The DVD drive had a couple of drops of liquid on it but that was all.  I was surprised to say the least.  The hard drive had none.   I then took all of the screws out of the thing, and being a typical laptop, I still couldn’t get it apart.  I shinned a flashlight into the ‘innards” of the computer but couldn’t see any red liquid anywhere.  Very odd.

I let it dry out for a while and decided it was going to work or it wasn’t.  I put all of the screws back into it and couldn’t believe it when all of the screws matched all of the holes properly.  How often does THAT happen?? 

I hit the power button and what do you know?  The crazy thing was starting up!!!  Being an encrypted computer I had to log in using the key combination “Control-ALT -DELETE”, or at least I tried to.  Seems the Delete key wasn’t working so well.  I mashed it a half dozen times and got the log-in window.  WHEW!!!   Logged in, up it came.  All is right in my universe…but then….it shut itself off.  “OH….GREAT!!!”.   I went ahead and hit the power button again but….no good.  It would start to come up and then just shut back down.  Now I’m REALLY feeling sick.  I’m pretty good about backing up my files but that wasn’t the point.  I’ve GOT to have that thing to be able to work!!!  Too many deadlines and pressures coming at me from many directions.  Now I’m dead in the water.  “Wonderful……”

But wait…there’s more!!!

To make a long story longer……..   My wife suggested that I take the screws back out of it, open it up as far as it would let me and set it in front of a small fan all night to see if it would dry out.  Good idea and nice try to make me feel better but I knew the computer was “toast”.  But, after nearly 28 years of marriage I have learned to listen to my wife.  Sometimes her head is calmer than mine and vice versa but isn’t that what it’s all about???

So I begrudgingly took all of the goofy screws back out, propped the case open as far as I could get it and set it on it’s side and positioned a small fan to blow on it.  It was now about 1:30 a.m.  Might as well go to bed.  Yeah…like I’m going to be able to sleep now!!!

I did eventually fall asleep.  The danged alarm went off at 6:30.  My first thought was of the drowning laptop.

Came downstairs and no, it had not gone anywhere.  Took care of the dogs (fed etc) and started putting the laptop back together.

When that was accomplished I stuck it back into the docking station, said a little prayer, and fired it up.  Well…what do you know!!!  It’s working!!!  I was far from convinced.  It is now 9:54 here and the crazy thing is still up and running.  You can bet I backed up several files that I KNEW had not been.

While I was working along I needed to send an email.  I started typing and discovered the laptop was inserting “m’s” at random.  “Great…..”   I could hit the ‘m’ key and it would work…but then sometimes it would give me 6 of them instead of just one.  I gently pried the ‘m’ key off and cleaned the bottom of the key and all the little clips etc on the keyboard.  Blew it out with some canned air, said another little prayer, and popped the key back into place.  Now I get only a single ‘m’. 

The only victim of the “spill” so far is my mouse.  It got a good dunking too.  I opened it up and fruit punch was all inside it.  I cleaned it out as best I could, put it back together, plugged it into the laptop and the mouse cursor just runs off the screen to the right at about 100 miles an hour.  So, the mouse is “toast” but I can get another cheapo mouse.  I like to use a mouse cause I don’t like touch-pads on laptops.  When you are using software development tools on the computer, you quickly discover the touch-pad is NOT the “mouse” of choice. 

Now, why am I sitting here typing this instead of working?  I do both.  The project I’m working on includes a bunch of emails and waiting on other people to reply before I can proceed.  So call it “break time”  

Anyway, I truly believe the following.  If I did not have diabetes that would have been a cola of some kind or orange juice in the plastic cup.  The sugar in the drink would have no doubt ruined the keyboard.  Crystal Light has no sugar so the keys don’t stick etc. except for the missbehaving ‘m’ and ”Delete” which are now working.  Also, cola or juice would not have dried out nicely inside the system.  Am I calling having diabetes a good thing?  Well no, but it came in handy this particular time.  Also, if that big plastic cup had not cushioned the fall of the desktop onto the laptop I KNOW it would have broken the screen on the laptop.

You can call it coincidence if you want.  That is your right.  Me?  I call it devine intervention and I thank God it has all worked out so well so far.  I always look at these sorts of things and try to determine the “lesson” to be learned.  Aside from the obvious don’t put a drink close to a laptop computer and be more careful not to be so cotton picking clumsy and knock the desktop computer over, I’m not sure just yet.  I believe God reveals things to us in His time and His way if we just keep our hearts and minds open to His “still small voice”.  Oh….the desktop computer is just humming away.  I typed this story using it.  Who-da-thunkit???

So, back to work.  Let my “incident” be a lesson to you about drinks in the proximity of laptop computers.