The Extra "Alt"

Most times I lack ideas, good or bad. But sometimes (yes sometimes) I get a great one that comes along. Usually my great ideas don't seem like much to anyone else but myself, but I like to pretend it's a huge deal anyhow.

So I have been "n"-less for some time now having my frustration growing more and more as I stumble through whatever I'm typing when I come across that letter. Just now during one of those frustrated episodes, I looked down at my keys. While starring at them in distain I realized that there are 2 "alt" keys. I also took notice that the "alt" keys are the same size as the letter keys. Going through my memory I tried to recall if I have ever used both "alt" keys and discovered that I have not.

So yes, I am a genius....a slow one....but a genius none the less. Since substituting my missing "n" with the extra "alt" my fingers again enjoy dancing across the keys! YEY for me!

"N"-less

Some weeks go by very uneventful. Other weeks, like this week, it seems that I am God's personal Jester.

I went through my morning routine like normal. Cleaned my house and everything was dandy. Then, I get a wild hair in my butt to vacuum off my laptop computer. It was going well at first, but then my HIGHLY expensive Kirby Vacuum system (expensive as in more than $2,000) decided it would turn against me. Slidding the vacuum attachment along the keyboard, it stopped itself at the letter "n." Then I hear a "clump-clink-clank" go down the hose.

I said to myself, "NO IT DID NOT!"

Upon shutting the vacuum off and lifting the attachment off of it's new favorite meal (the keyboard), I discovered that the darn vacuum ate my letter "n."

I was calm at first, thinking "no big deal, I know where the 'n' is at." So I took apart my vacuum, and took off the 99.997% allergen filtered bag that weighs 3 pounds at least when it's empty (the bag, not the vacuum....heavy bag) and wrapped my face in a wet towel so I didn't breath in all the mites and dust it had collected in the last 3 weeks.

I found that their 99.997% allergen filter bag was almost inpenetrable. It took me 30 minutes to empty that bag (if it wasn't so expensive to buy another bag, I would have cut it open). My first shift through of the dusty little bunnies (wearing 2 plastic bags as my gloves) left me with nothing other than lots of dust, crayons, some paper, candy wrapper, and some pine needles from the Christmas tree. I then went on to flip the bag inside out, shaking the last bits of dust bunnies out onto the driveway. I found no letter "n."

I shifted through the pile of dust again and again. Each time breaking the little clumps into smaller clumps, each time feeling more for something flat and square. Each time failing to find anything.

At this point, I thought maybe I imagined the letter "n" missing (happens sometimes), so I went back to check the laptop. Sure enough my sanity was proven with the empty space between the letters "m" and "b."

So I went back outside again and checked again, and again, and again. I was about to give up, but then I remembered that I have a stubborn streak and with that I took off my wet towel tied around my face and my plastic bag gloves and decided to dive right in (you know, to do it right).

By this point I have spent an hour looking for my letter "n." Covered with dust and who-knows what, looking a bit albino-ish, I thought maybe I should clean up....but not before one last scan through of the thin dusty spread along the driveway. So I scanned, slowly, and stubbornly, I scanned.

There, as white as I was, I saw one-third of my letter "n", then I found another third. Having the two-thirds in my ashy hand I thought it was ok to give up since I found the majority of it. Logic also told me that finding it in pieces ment that it's broken.

So I cleaned up, got Sony on the phone and requested to buy the letter "n" for my Vaio Notebook. They said, "What?!?!" So I told them how my vacuum turned against me (jealuously I presume as I use the laptop more than the vacuum). They did their best to help me and transfered me from one person to another. I didn't understand why the sales people were so confused, surely, there has to be others out there that looses just one letter, but that would be me assuming that I'm part of the normal population.

I finally got a guy who informed me that they simply do not contact Japan for single letters. (I don't see why not, seems reasonable to me...for repair shops and such) Instead, he told me that I would have to purchase the whole keyboard and replace the keyboard. I stared at my laptop and tried to figure out how just the keyboard section is replaced and not the whole base...I mean, if it's just the keyboard section, would they send me it letter by letter, button by button, piece by piece? I just couldn't figure out how it is done in one piece without replacing the base of it. So, naturally I asked him. Either he didn't know, or he was annoyed. He told me that if I didn't know I would have to take it to a repair shop and have them do it. I thanked him for his time and hung up.

There have been many times when things I have bought/own suddenly misses a piece of it. Being that I think it's a bit ridiculous to replace the whole keyboard (I have the rest of the letters and they work just fine), I'm going to handle this as I do in my similar past situations.

I'm going to find a floor model from a store and take the piece that I need. And so I do not repeat this mistake, I'm keeping the vacuum and the laptop separated since they obviously have issues with one another and I don't need the laptop to retaliate against the vacuum.

The Watershow

I love when things on me break down or flow over. Timing is never better. It always seems that when things like this happens I've also got a million other things I'm doing at the same time. Today was no exception, though it started last night.

While preparing dinner last night my sink lovingly clogged up and flowed over. Which was grand because I had to put dinner on hold to run out and get some roto-rooter stuff (whatever happened to Draino, it wasn't even on the shelves). Of course I went to walmart (bad idea), and of course Walmart was packed (I hate packed stores). Waiting in the express lane, thought about the dinner I had left on the stove and wanted to go home with urgency. That feeling probably wasn't a good idea, since anytime I feel urgent about anything things become more sluggish. The lady infront of my dropped her case of Frapacinos (which should be a crime, except it was mocha flavored, not coffee flavored). So they closed off the 2 surrounding checkout lanes. This left me along with everyone else infront of and behind me to move to another register and wait even longer. The checkout lane I then went to had a mechanical problem just as I put the roto-rooter down to be scanned, so I had to again change checkout lanes.

I finally made it home after fighting traffic, and dinner was cold and now stuck to the pan. So I scraped what I could out and we ate.

Putting the dishes aside and stacking them in the pots and pans (since I could not use my sink and therefore my dishwasher), HB began to plung the sink. It was unfortunate that I had my back to the sink because I missed a spectacular geyser! Rather than being able to see it coming and dodging to enjoy the show while remaining dry, my backside got the brunt of it.

Plunging did not work, so I then resorted to pooring the roto-rooter into the sink. 2 hours goes by and I comment on how it was not working at all. HB then made an observation and informed me that it would probably work best if I had removed the stoppers. With that, the stoppers were removed and we left it to work over night.

During the morning rush to get the kids ready for school, I was pleased that the sink was now empty. As i got ready to wash the dishes from the night before, the sink again clogged up and flowed over. I sigh and let it be, and went on to clear up breakfast (yay, more dishes). Of course the morning wouldn't have been complete with my lovely toddler throwing her food around as if it were confetti.

After coming home from taking my two older daughters to school, I decided I would conquer the flooding sink, I felt that victory was on my side. With pipe wrench in hand, towels laying along the floor and under the sink with a bowl (a bucket would not have fit under the piping) to catch whatever came leaking out, I felt prepared.

I'm not sure what happened, but as I slowly began to loosen the joints, water went everywhere, like an angry river released from a dam. My bowl did not collect the water as it was shooting upward (defying gravity) and then bouncing off the top of that cabinet outwards at me, drenching me head to toe and flooding the kitchen floor. On a positive note, it stayed dry under the sink. The pipe wasn't even off yet, it was just loosened, and the water was coming out with such force that I couldn't even pretend to tighten it back up.

Covered in nasty built up water, I evaluated my wet kitchen, and decided it best to clean up and change my clothes. After that I figured that there wasn't anymore water that could come out of the pipes, so I then proceeded to take them all apart. Sadly, the clog must be beyond my reach as I didn't find a clog in the pipes. Realizing I would need a snake, but knowing that I didn't have one, I picked up the only thing I knew would be my last chance as coming out the victor of this battle....the phone book. It was aparent to me then that I am a bad plumber, which was humbling because I'm very much a do-it-yourself type of person...that and I'm a penny pincher.