Luck

Once again, it's been a bit of a while. No matter, I'm writing today because I CAN and some things are just too good not to celebrate. I'll start with my cat's drinking problem. She loves her water, and if I leave a cup out she is almost guaranteed to knock it over in an attempt to have access to every last drop. I've watched her do this; she'll walk up to the cup in question, stick her head in to drink as much as she can and then put her paw right over the rim to knock the whole damn thing over. It's an impressive thing to see, but I do not appreciate it. Catsby has ruined homework, soaked books, made numerous general messes and caused one computer keyboard to sputter and die. I've known about this for years and I constantly ensure that nothing of too much importance is left in a place that could become damp. Until three nights ago.

My 8 month old Macbook Pro.

As I sat playing around online and chatting on my cell phone, I was overcome with the sudden urge to blow my nose. I stood up and walked the 2.5 steps to my bathroom, and before I could make it back to my couch I heard something. Unfamiliar. I took a hesitant step into the living room and almost stopped in shock, for there sat my laptop in a small puddle of water. I was speaking with my friend Sara at the time and I became mute as I ran over and picked up my computer. I was shaking from head to toe. This was not a cheap laptop and I would not be able to afford another. After managing to grunt a few sentences to Sara and hang up the phone, I began to really freak out because it died. Because I am an idiot, I immediately tried to turn it back on. The light kind of flickered, then everything died. It did not come back on. As an interesting sidenote, I later learned that trying to turn back on a piece of electronics after it encounters water is not actually a good idea; it's the worse possible thing you could do, short of pouring more water onto the device. In retrospect, that makes a lot of sense and I should have known, but at the time it was completely automatic to just press that start key.

Won't ever do that again. After my computer made that sad dying sound, I immediate took out the battery and carefully blotted up all the water. There didn't seem to be a lot, and it luckily didn't go anywhere on the actual keypad, but I'm realistic and was quite aware that I could have a very expensive paperweight sitting in my hands. Various calls to my tech geek friends all assured me that just letting it dry out for a while was the only thing I could do. I set it up on a towel with a high powered fan and waved my hands above it in hopes of transferring some magic. Then I let it sit.

Over the next two days I read just about every blog and story (on computers other than my own) that I could, and they all convinced me I had about a 50% chance of things working out in my favor. This morning I decided that every bit of possible moisture had long since evaporated and watched in fear as my boyfriend put it all back together. After another moment of magic hand gesticulation, I pushed the button and...........well obviously it worked, because my computer is what I'm now writing on. Hysterical relief ensued. I have said my prayers of thanks to the universe and I truly know how lucky I am. Breathing easier, I sign off now but there is a strong possibility the near death of my computer will instill in me the urge to use it more, and blog more often. Or maybe not. But I am extremely thankful it's up and running, and today you can count me one of the happiest girls in the world.