First of all, I'd like to thank all of you who asked after me when
We work best side by side
I sort of...disappeared. There is a lot to the story, and a good many of you follow my wife: The Fabulous Feathermaye, and know that she has kept up the news of what's been going on during my blog absence.
Many of you were following our exploits through our quazi-homelessness, as we meandered from Greater Houston to Canton Mountain, to Palestine (pronounced: Pal-ess-teen around these here parts) then our movements to Dallas, which has finally brought us back to a position where we sort of started from: with a roof over our heads, and employment in the storage business, leaving us once more working side-by-side...whew!
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| The Old Mine on Canton Mountain |
As you may recall, I was blogging like a madman from The Mountain. Then, the stupid power cord on this lap-top developed a little, shall we say: wiggle? I was having to stop, rig a constantly changing jig with which to shore up the plug, just to get a little juice so I could plunge into the web's waters. This worked briefly, and became so much of a hassle that I could not finish anything without hours upon hours of head-banging effort just to power up.
Finally, I gave up and went back to work --literally-- as our unemployment ran out and we had not yet found this new little opportunity.
On our way to where we are now, I attempted to get the lap-top serviced and spoke with numerous individuals who nodded in agreement: all I needed was to have a new power-port installed, the bad one had just enough play in the contact points that it simply would not stay put! I even consulted with an area manager for Best Buy, and he agreed that the good ole boys at the Geek Squad could tackle that job, and would probably only run in the pricing neighborhood of around 65.00. I promised I would not hold him to that price exactly, and even nodded at the "give or take 10-15 bucks".
As it turned out, his little cluster of Best Buy stores did not include the one in Mesquite, Texas...which was the closest one to the area of East Dallas that Feathermaye and I were renting a room in. We called ahead and did as much research as possible about the Best Buy/Geek Squad procedures and felt that since the lap-top had to be shipped off for repair anyhow, it didn't matter which store we dropped it off at.
We paid our 35.00 deposit and sent the unit on its way to repairsville.
While I was at work a few days later, Feathermaye sent me a text telling me that the Geeks felt that my poor laptop needed a new motherboard to fix the problem and they wanted 367.00 to button'er up.
I know, I know, you're all chuckling and saying: You can buy a new one for that price! AS important as writing is for me, this was not in our budget.
When Feathermaye attempted to pursue the "can't you just change the power port?" argument, they addressed her as if she were a mentally challenged individual. A condescending "No ma'am..." was the answer she received from the Geeks.
"Just tell 'em to send it back, then..." I said to her, mentally adding "I'll just have to put off writing for a while longer".
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| It was Best Buy's third strike |
"I figured you'd say that," she said. "I already told them that, along with a few expletives I felt you would want me to add in. I promise I didn't call any of them anything that did not fit the situation."
"That's my girl..."
Back to the ole drawing board.
Having moved everything in to our newly remodeled residence, I took advantage of a rainy day and finished unpacking our stuff for like the upteenth time in the last two years. Atop a shelf sat the laptop once I was done, along with the disagreeable power cord. It called out to me this morning and I had a moment of inspiration.
When the morning duties were done and we reached a period of quiet (one of the real advantages that Feathermaye and I love about this type of work) I grabbed the laptop, power cord and a little aluminum foil.
I had actually thought about using the foil long ago, but dismissed it because I really thought the Geeks could fix this for a songs worth of pocket change. I fed my power cord up through the holes in the back of the lower counter top and opened the puter.
"Honey, breathe..." Feathermaye told me when I was working on it. At last, I had everything positioned and neatly folded a bit of foil, which I then carefully wrapped around the male portion of the cord prong. Remembering to exhale, I gently pushed the shimmed tip into the hole; it was a nice firm fit; I saw the little red "charging" light come on. It stayed on.
I stared at it, waiting for it to blink off again, as it had so many times over the last year or so.
"Honey, breathe!" Feathermaye said again, not looking at what I was doing, but noticing none-the-less.
But, the little red light was staying on!
It's still on!
I've written this entire blog without it going off...
The angels are singing: hallelujah!
And even after we broke for lunch, it stayed on...
Oh wait...It just turned green. I'm charged! I'm charged! Great god almighty, I'm charged at last!
As for the Geeks...well, I guess everyone needs a paycheck. I'm just not contributing to it.
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