Water Damage
Abbie is slowly working her way up the ladder in the value of the things she destroys. The first things she destroyed were probably newspapers or other stray pieces of paper foolishly left on the floor. This is the rung where the twins currently reside, as they remind me every morning when I rise from the floor to clean up their bottles after simultaneously feeding them and reading my newspaper. This is no big deal, unless someone ruins the day’s Garfield before I have a chance to read it.
Next Abbie stepped up to books, using her newfound creativity to discover new directions to turn the pages of a book. This is a little bigger deal, but it wasn’t much since most of her books came cheap and pre-torn from garage sales. Her destructiveness with her books is now a little bigger deal since I’m looking to read these books to her brothers. First I need to convince her, though, that she doesn’t have to hold and turn the pages of every book I read, especially when I have a brother in my lap.
Abbie has since moved on to electronics, making her victims bigger and more expensive. There’re the television remotes that she chewed on too many times. There’s the LeapFrog toy that makes dozens of supposedly educational but actually annoying noises that she slobbered all over. There’s the cell phone that the helpful store clerk described as suffering “water damage.”
Now Abbie has her most expensive victim yet: Our laptop computer. Continuing her Death by Liquid motif, Abbie dumped a can of soda pop on it. Note that she didn’t accidentally spill the can next to the laptop, but picked up the can, held it over the laptop, and poured its contents all over the open computer to see what happens.*
I stood about 15 feet from her when she did it, allowing me to immediately flip the computer over to let the let the liquid drain out the way it went in, and then quickly turn myself to the side so none of my flowing tears would cause further damage. Not that my actions did any good. After a 24 hour drying out/denial period we flipped it over, plugged it back in, and watched the computer do nothing more than taunt me with a click every time I hit the power button.
This horrible experience has two silver linings. First, our laptop was getting old and would need replaced sometime soon anyway. It was about 4-years-old, and had a hard drive so small that it could only store a couple hundred CD’s worth of music. I just wanted to limp through with it for a little while longer until some mostly hypothetical future time when we have more money, possibly because I finally successfully propagated that money tree. That’s why we bought our new laptop with a “24 months no interest” plan.
Second, the hard drive was in good condition despite the drenching. We need several off that drive, like important research papers, priceless photos, and about 100 CD’s worth of music. Fortunately we can pay a nominal fee when we buy our new laptop to have the old drive’s contents transferred to the new computer. This is a better option than paying a large sum for an intensive recovery, only to discover that the only salvageable files are a couple things from the Internet cache, and maybe my college treatise on the life of Mahler.
Our laptop is on order, so now we need only wait. It should arrive in a couple days loaded with all of our old important information. When I get it home, I’m going to let Abbie nowhere near it. I’m also going to start immediately disposing all open liquid containers in the house. Oh, and I’d better hide my car keys, because the car is about the only thing we own left for her to graduate to.
* Daddy yells “dear God, no!”
** That’s equivalent to approximately 210 people years.
Next Abbie stepped up to books, using her newfound creativity to discover new directions to turn the pages of a book. This is a little bigger deal, but it wasn’t much since most of her books came cheap and pre-torn from garage sales. Her destructiveness with her books is now a little bigger deal since I’m looking to read these books to her brothers. First I need to convince her, though, that she doesn’t have to hold and turn the pages of every book I read, especially when I have a brother in my lap.
Abbie has since moved on to electronics, making her victims bigger and more expensive. There’re the television remotes that she chewed on too many times. There’s the LeapFrog toy that makes dozens of supposedly educational but actually annoying noises that she slobbered all over. There’s the cell phone that the helpful store clerk described as suffering “water damage.”
Now Abbie has her most expensive victim yet: Our laptop computer. Continuing her Death by Liquid motif, Abbie dumped a can of soda pop on it. Note that she didn’t accidentally spill the can next to the laptop, but picked up the can, held it over the laptop, and poured its contents all over the open computer to see what happens.*
I stood about 15 feet from her when she did it, allowing me to immediately flip the computer over to let the let the liquid drain out the way it went in, and then quickly turn myself to the side so none of my flowing tears would cause further damage. Not that my actions did any good. After a 24 hour drying out/denial period we flipped it over, plugged it back in, and watched the computer do nothing more than taunt me with a click every time I hit the power button.
This horrible experience has two silver linings. First, our laptop was getting old and would need replaced sometime soon anyway. It was about 4-years-old, and had a hard drive so small that it could only store a couple hundred CD’s worth of music. I just wanted to limp through with it for a little while longer until some mostly hypothetical future time when we have more money, possibly because I finally successfully propagated that money tree. That’s why we bought our new laptop with a “24 months no interest” plan.
Second, the hard drive was in good condition despite the drenching. We need several off that drive, like important research papers, priceless photos, and about 100 CD’s worth of music. Fortunately we can pay a nominal fee when we buy our new laptop to have the old drive’s contents transferred to the new computer. This is a better option than paying a large sum for an intensive recovery, only to discover that the only salvageable files are a couple things from the Internet cache, and maybe my college treatise on the life of Mahler.
Our laptop is on order, so now we need only wait. It should arrive in a couple days loaded with all of our old important information. When I get it home, I’m going to let Abbie nowhere near it. I’m also going to start immediately disposing all open liquid containers in the house. Oh, and I’d better hide my car keys, because the car is about the only thing we own left for her to graduate to.
* Daddy yells “dear God, no!”
** That’s equivalent to approximately 210 people years.
posted by Matt at
11:37 PM
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