Right now, I'm typing on the dinosaur - my old desktop HP. I'm sitting crookedly, perched on the end of the couch with my keyboard balanced precariously on the arm, getting a crick in my neck while looking at the monitor on the end table, and trying to be grateful that our blasted laptop is still under warranty. On Thursday, apparently the Muffin was quite happily surfing Playhouse Disney when the thing froze up. Not being able to get it to do anything, BabyDaddy simply turned it off. When he tried to turn it back on, he was faced with the dreaded black screen, and an ominous message reading, 'NO BOOTABLE DEVICES'. After running the system checks, I noticed that all the tests passed with no problem, until we got to the hard drive, whose test results read, 'None'. No hard drive eh? Well, that just MIGHT be problematic. Thank goodness I didn't let BD sell 'Old Iron Sides' here in a yard sale like he wanted. The old girl lasted me all the way through my college years, and she hasn't let me down yet. Guess they just don't make them like they used to. Friday evening BD deserted me - although with good cause - he went with his dad to rebuild some too-steep stairs for his uncle who will be returning home from the hospital this week. Regardless, I found myself on my own with the Muffin and prayed he would be calm and well behaved while I tried to contact the techies at Dell. Now SERIOUSLY Meg, I'm sure you're thinking. The Muffin, WELL BEHAVED when desperately needed? REALLY?! Is that what two-year-olds do? Behave? I think not! Well, my lovelies, you would be quite right in your assumptions. I love my son with the boundless devotion that any mother loves her child, but he is not one to sit idly by while Mommy is trying to do something important. Case #1) Deciding to attempt eating an entire bowl of dog chow while I was trying to show the heating and air man where our unit was last summer. Case #2) Screaming "I WANT A SUCKER! I WANT A COOKIE! I WANT CHOCOLATE! I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE!" repeatedly, although not necessarily in that order, while I tried in vain to set up our cable. Case #3) Jumping off the back of the couch ("I'm a kangaROOOOOOO!") while eating a stolen mini-Hershey's bar - I think he scaled the shelves of the pantry to get to 'Mommy's treats' on the top shelf - leaving little chocolate dribbles everywhere, while I was trying to get the salesman at the door to leave. ("But ma'am, I think you really could get some good use out of the Rainbow Vacuum Cleaning System..." as he eyeballed my chocolate covered banshee hurling himself off the top of the couch again.) Which brings us to the events of the Dell call on Friday evening. I don't even think I can bear to recount the entire conversation - the little Iranian man on the other side of the slightly statick-ey line preening, 'Do you know what 'da batt'ry look like mum?' Can you find 'da two screws to 'da left and right mum?', while Lil' C happily galloped into the bedroom where I had isolated myself - 'OH Mommy! You are working! 'Dere is a ska-rue driver! I will help you Mommy!' Meanwhile little Iranian man is getting perturbed. 'Mum. Mum?! Can you hear me mum?' He walked me through taking out the hard drive and re-installing it, although I found with some dismay that the Muffin had spirited off one of the tiny screws needed to secure the drive back in place. Of course all of the above did nothing, and Mr. Iranian finally came to the conclusion that I had arrived at long ago. 'Mum,' he said sadly,'I believe 'dat your hard drive, eet has crashed.' No really? Thankfully, they are sending me another hard drive at the first of the week, so that is at least something. However, I've been slacking and haven't uploaded pictures or backed up videos in quite a while, so I'm desperately hoping that I can take the bad hard drive into the Geek Squad and they can recover some of my files. *Sigh* Technology - you never realize how ridiculously helpless it makes you feel, and how much you rely on it, until it goes and blows up on you.
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