Story -Techno Attack

You know the old adage that trouble comes in threes, right? Well, I've come to the conclusion that irritating things come in twenty-twos and usually within the span of one short day.

These just seem to be the little facts of life. Yesterday would be a fine example of this theory. The day begins with a dead car battery. Dead because my headlights were left on. OK, you say, you are an idiot and you left your lights on. Well, not quite so much. See, I have a relatively new car and that isn't supposed to happen. When I turn the car off, the lights are supposed to go off too. Not this time. I worried that perhaps something was wrong with the ignition switch, but no. I have no idea how this fluke occurred, but now I'm really irritated. I NEED this feature because I'm FAMOUS for leaving my lights on in foggy San Francisco. Great, I have a feature I cannot trust.

As I'm jumping my car, the phone rings and its Verizon calling to let me know that I might want to switch to the endless minutes plan and I'm some thousand minutes over my current plan and the bill is to the moon. And, by the way a payment is due.

OK, have you ever talked to Verizon? The upside is that they might be one of the last corporations that actually have a human being working with you instead of a robot, but the downside is that they are really very, very, very thorough. So while my car battery is being re-charged, my cell battery is being drained as I'm hearing about every little thing under the sun and how I can use my phone to get directions if I go back to college and take three computer science courses. THEN while in the course of multi-tasking, I somehow manage to tweak the phone in such a manner as to break the top of the phone half way off and it now hangs by a thread and has no screen. Super.

Right about then my clients arrive and I have to abandon both projects. After that, I return to my main office and main computer to do some editing. Or not. Apparently I have a wavering hard drive. Now, while not my main hard drive, this is NOT a hard drive I want to loose, trust me. So we play the re-boot game which becomes massive. Once I finally get the thing up, I have to abandon my plans for the day in favor of burning DVD's like a mad woman to get my information off the stupid thing. I have two computers going in order to expedite this and there I am rolling my chair back and forth, re-booting the one about every five minutes and then the second one decides that while it will check the DVD to tell me the files are there, it will not show me the thumbnails until I reboot IT.

Alright, I know when I'm beat. So I go to call my computer guy... except that his number is in the cell phone with no screen. Oh happy day. Fortunately, I have my son's number memorized, and he works at Circuit City so I call him to see about getting me another phone. I'm really inept at things like that and its priceless to me that he is so good at it. However, seems I must make that payment first. Fine.

I go to look for my credit card and it is gone. Not gone as in stolen, gone as in somewhere on the desk with the 75000 DVD's spread all over the place from my earlier mania. Fine, I opt for the ATM card, call, go through the rigmarole and the card is declined. This puts me in a frenzy because, while I admittedly suck at balancing my checkbook, this would mean about a 2,ooo screw up, which is bad, even for me. So NOW I'm off to the bank. No, I'm fine down there and they have no idea why the card was denied. Back home, back to Verizon and then the dreaded moment happens - the phone falls completely apart. Done. Over. Bye-bye.

So NOW I get to dig through random files to find an old Verizon bill so I can call them back. I do, pay the bill, but not before I get a two hour run down on everything under the sun.

Then to my son. Yes, I can get a new phone, but if I wait until the 23rd I can get an upgraded phone. I couldn't care LESS about an upgraded phone, all I need is one that DIALS and shows me a screen. Then he tells me the upgraded phone will carry 200 of my images in it which I can use as a portable portfolio and now I care about the upgraded phone. Dilemma.

Seeing as the day is primarily shot, I decide to go in and work on the laptop and write my newspaper column. JUST because it can, it decides that the letter *t* is not going to work. Now, have you ever tried to type anything and avoid the letter *t*? I'm here to tell you that it is in the center of the keyboard for a reason.

OK, its become clear that the day is a wash, so I opt for the television set. This was a bad idea because I've recently switched companies and I don't understand my television anymore. I keep getting stuck on the Asian News, which is all well and good except not being Korean, its not really all that entertaining. I call and beg my boyfriend to come over and help me get to Bravo and content myself with Project Runway re-runs and get mad at them for booting Chris off the show all over again.

I go to bed, all to happy to end Black Monday.

Now, I am convinced that these things cluster together for a reason and intentionally. I got up this morning to deal with the letter *T* and you can see it is working. It just began working like yesterday never happened. The other computer is also in a better mood and miraculously, my computer guy found me and will doubtless save me. Can't say the same for my cell phone, but hey - small potatoes.

So the plan is for today to be a better day. My plan, anyway, we will see if the wide world of technology stays on my team or not.

HOWEVER - for the next week, use the office number not the cell. And, Elizabeth, Judy, Jonathan, Paul, Ana, Laura Kerr and Mo please call and leave me your phone numbers? You are in my cell only, so I can't reach you.

Thanks!

www.thedawsonstudios.com office number is 707.987.8385