Surprisingly Easy Fixes

I briefly thought this last Sunday that my writing life was over. I found my computer was dead after I had spent time doing household chores like washing the dishes. I couldn’t turn it on. And I found the battery wasn’t properly connected to the wall socket for recharging, a thing that had apparently been true for far too long. It was the third time that my faulty memory and my excruciatingly bad luck had conspired to completely drain the computer battery. That is, of course, about the worst thing you can do to damage a modern lithium battery, drain it completely. And I had done it THREE TIMES!!!

So, naturally, I cussed myself as a stupid loser and decided to buy myself another laptop instead of paying the 300+ dollars it would cost to replace the electrical system of my Chromebook at Best Buy. My wife and daughter were in San Antonio visiting my sister-in-law and mother-in-law for the weekend. So, they were not around to talk me out of my evil plan. I bought a Windows 10 compatible HP Laptop at Walmart for about a hundred dollars more than I thought the repair of the other computer would cost me. And I was amazed as I got it home and started retrieving my essential apps and documents. It is much more compatible with my documents and writing habits than the Chromebook. I didn’t have to waste a lot of time learning new procedures and linking things up in a different way. I could even do Google Chrome on the new computer where the Chromebook doesn’t allow easy access to the Microsoft Edge I had gotten used to before the Chromebook. I was actually feeling quite pleased with myself.

On Monday, the same day I brilliantly replaced the Chromebook, my daughter came home from San Antonio. She heard the story of my tragedy and following triumph, and she immediately demanded to see the Chromebook. I had been keeping it on the charger since its death, and we still seemingly couldn’t turn it on.

“Wait a minute, how long did you wait after pressing the “on” button before you pressed it again?” she asked.

I hadn’t been timing it. But I had tried everything when it died.

“Try it again. But press it only once.”

I pressed the “on” button, not holding it down, just like she had advised me. A quick click followed by a long wait.

“See? The battery is truly dead.”

“Wait a moment more.”

As soon as she said that, the screen was suddenly prompting me for my password. I typed in, “bullwinklemooseismyheroandrolemodel989” (Not actually my password) and the computer was back from the dead!

“Amazing! I spent all that money just because I wasn’t turning it on correctly!”

“Well, you did have to fully reload the battery. And the Chromebook I had at school used to do almost the same thing sometimes when it didn’t feel like working properly. But now you have two laptops. One for watching Netflix and one for writing stuff.”

Genius! Pure genius. I now have two new computers, and my wife can’t even get mad at me for how it happened. Once in a great while, it pays to be forgetful and excruciatingly unlucky.

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