My Brush with Death!

Life With Kermie

6 Aug

You know how sometimes you wake up early in the morning and think, ‘the bed’s comfortable so I’ll just hang here a bit and doze off again’?

But then the mind starts to tick and wanders off all over the place. So it was with me this morning. I wake up and look at the clock which says 4.30 AM. It’s cosy in here and cold outside.

Then I think of the work to do on the computer for another day of Truckin with Kermie. ‘Nah. That can wait for another couple of hours. But there’s that story I’ve just written in my mind – I’ll forget it. No I won’t. Yes I will, etc.’ ‘This is stupid,’ says the sane part inside my head. ‘You need the extra sleep.’

Then I drift to an event and a particular person who has recently pissed me off. Stuff this! So I get up and turn the computer on. She’s old and takes up to ten minutes to get herself into action – a bit like me I suppose, but quicker.

Rita’s up (as usual) before me and pours me a coffee. Out I go onto the patio with coffee in hand, on this 1 degree morning, to peruse the phone, play a couple of rounds of Words with Friends, check emails and satisfy the addiction while doing so – the only reason to be outside on this cold winter’s day.

Half an hour and two cups later and it’s time to hit the keyboard. There’s the screen all lit up and ready to go. I hit the Documents Icon on the Task Bar and….nothing! I tap it again with the same result. Then I dumbly hit all the others with the same lack of response. This is not good!

If I can’t open anything up I can’t work. And this is the only job I have… In fact that’s what I say out loud to the computer: “You have one job!”

“Use your phone and google what to do,” says my always calm and level-headed wife.

So I do and it tells me to press Ctrl > Shift > Esc which will bring up some screen. Then I have to find a certain program, right click on it and tell it to do something. I faithfully follow the directions and wait. Nothing appears to happen so I exit the program.

It is then that I am confronted by The Blue Screen of Death!

Mindful of our Steve’s advice (and how he made a lot of money) that the first thing you should do with a malfunctioning computer is turn it off, wait a bit and turn back on as a solver of 99% of all PC problems –– I do just that. Another coffee and addiction appeaser and I turn it back on. There it is! The Blue Screen of Death that is.

If I was pissed off at the thought of someone who’s pissed me off, that was nothing compared to the way I’m feeling now. The blood pressure is through the roof and I’m on coffee #5 and cigarette #who’s counting.

Again my calm and logical Rita says to Google it. I do and then explode. “I can’t begin to understand any of this shit!” I cry.

The only bit I do understand is the last line which says, ‘your computer’s probably f***ed’ in not so many words.

“Send Steve a message and see if he’s still awake.” (It’s 11pm London time).

No response. “Ring him. He won’t mind.” I do. No response. Shit, shit, shit, shit!

I turn the bloody thing off and back on half a dozen times. No response. It’s actually quite a nice shade of blue – certainly not a colour that I’d associate with a computer apocalypse. That’s a stupid thought, Kermie. Get with the game son.

Rita, again calm (well, on the outside at least) points out that what is, is. And if we have to go out and buy another then we do. This is an expense a poor scribe can’t afford and frankly I’d rather spend the dough on caps, beanies and other merchandise. Or promotion of the site. Or just about anything other than another computer at this time.

"Yes,” comments Rita. “And it’s half of the new fridge I’d like to have, but Murphy does what Murphy does. You should know by now that you can’t fight him, so just accept that your life is in his hands.”

She really knows how to cheer me up does that girl!

….. I don’t know what time it was when a tiny, lone voice managed to get through the cacophony of the other thoughts crowding my brain, but there it was, trying to tell me something else Steve had said all those years back…. “Turn it off at the wall, dad.”

It dawned on me that I’d just been tapping the on/off button on the computer which just put it to sleep – rather than out like a light.

So I turned the darned thing off at the wall, and just to make sure, I pulled the plug out as well. Five minutes later I turned it back on and, Voila! There she was! Back in all her glory, replete with the screen pic of Klos’ superb Kenny.

I’m a computer genius!

Postscript: I wrote this story up, worked on another and around 4pm went out onto the somewhat warmer patio for a congratulatory Scotch. Grabbed a piece of chocolate out of the fridge on the way. Put it in my gob and dislodged the biggest filling you ever did see. There goes $500 of that $1,000. I’d rather have had a new computer.

Bloody Murphy!