Plugging In: A Short Story Of Computer Angst & Good Intentions Gone Bad

/ Ally Bean

AS YOU MAY RECALL when last we met I was distraught about what I believed to be the demise of my precious desktop computer, Cora.

However, I was wrong about Cora.  Allow me to explain.

You see, Zen-Den decided to help me by unplugging my phone charger from my computer and instead plugging it into the surge protector strip that is on the floor behind the desk on which Cora sits.

He did this so that the round phone charger could sit on the desktop farther away from the round stone coaster on which I put my beverage whilst typing on Cora. There was concern, well-founded, that I’d accidentally, absent-mindedly use the round phone charger as my coaster, thereby ruining the charger.

Nice thought, good intentions.

• • •

THEN Z-D AMSCRAYED OFF to Colorado where he did Important Work Things leaving me with what seemed to be a dead computer sitting on the top of my desk.  I, of course, did all the requisite things one does when one’s computer appears to have given up the ghost.

I double-checked that everything was plugged in.  I banged on the keyboard.  I checked the mouse battery.  I turned the surge protector strip on and off.

I swore. I begged. I prayed.

And I texted Zen-Den who told me to do that which I’d already done, and that he’d look at Cora when he got back home at the end of the week.

Which he did.

But here’s the thing, when Z-D had added the phone charger plug to the surge protector strip, he moved all the plugs around on the strip to make them fit, not knowing there was a defective outlet on the strip.

Thus he inadvertently plugged Cora into an outlet that sent no electricity to her, so she did not work for me.  However, when he repositioned her plug on the surge protector strip, she came to life.  Like a miracle.

And there was joy in the land.

Huzzah, huzzah.

All of which brings me to the fact that I’m back to blogging, properly plugged in, happily engaging with Cora, and ready to share my own brand of flapdoodle & twaddle here.

Again.

86 thoughts on “Plugging In: A Short Story Of Computer Angst & Good Intentions Gone Bad”

  3. good thing you/he thought to switch the plugs around again. did you already know there was an outlet that didn’t work? but now you don’t have to buy a new pc

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  5. Just yesterday I found out something about my smart phone that has had me flummoxed for months. The way it was designed makes no sense. It’s not intuitive. I hate technology (well, it’s a love-hate relationship). Sometimes the simplest things are the issue but it takes a lot of time and cuss words to find it. I need an 8-year-old neighbor who could come in and fix things. Sorry you had to wait all week to have a plug replugged. Very glad it didn’t require carting Cora off to the junk heap.

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    • Thanks, Marian. While I feel a tad silly for not realizing what was wrong, I also realize that I don’t care how silly I feel. Cora is back, praise be.

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  9. Amazing what a simple fix that was! But what a pain to get to that final “fix”. Technology is great……when it works! Glad to see you’re back and able to produce more cool thoughts for us to ponder. Here’s to Cora!!

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    • Beth, the answer was simple, but it didn’t occur to me to check the outlet itself. Thankfully Z-D thought of it before I went out and bought a new computer. I like technology, too– but agree with you wholeheartedly. It’s great when it works… 🙄

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  12. So glad to hear that Cora’s issues were so easy to fix, and free, too!

    I’m also relieved on your behalf – when you first posted about the need to go offline until you got a replacement, I literally felt my stomach clench – I’ve lived through a dozen or more new computers (home and work) and each time the adjustment phase gets a bit more difficult to handle. It seems to me, anyway. It certainly ain’t plug and play!

    Which brings us back to Cora – you CAN plug and play in this situation!

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    • Maggie, I know what you mean about learning to use a new computer. No matter how swell they’re supposed to be there’s always something weird + wonky that makes the new computer difficult to understand. Plug and not play is kind of the subtext of all new machines– now that I think about it.

      Anyhoo, at least this time I got to keep my old reliable machine, now that I’m plugged in the way I need to be. *yay*

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  14. Oh dear, that’s – erm – embarrassing 😉 But I’m delighted to hear the solution was easy and not costly. When technology became commonplace, I lived with a man who was completely hopeless. Both his father and his grandfather despaired of him and expressed delight he’d found a woman who seemed able to turn her hand to most practical & technical stuff. I’m still willing to … just not always quite so able. My current employers use me a tester – if I can manage it, they expect their client’s staff to be able to too. Personally, I think they should set the bar for the client staff *way* higher …

    Either way, welcome back!

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    • deb, we live, we learn, right? When Cora went down I never thought to mess around with the plugs. In some ways my story is a cautionary tale. I’d like to be a tester like you are. It’d be fun to do that, knowing that the fate of other people rests on your ability to makes sense of techie stuff that by its very nature makes little sense. What a twisted world in which we live.

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      • It is interesting when I’m *just* testing, but when I want support for problems I’m having and that gets used as a learning experience … grrrr! But it has made me largely independent for my own business, so I can’t deny it’s been useful.

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  17. Well, THAT’S a relief…though it would make me want to do backup right away…because that week when things looked bleak would have felt even more terrible if you had lost anything important.

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    • dawn, it is a relief to have Cora back and I keep my fingers crossed that she’ll last a few more years. Fortunately all has ended well with this story.

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  18. Funny, I was just thinking about you and wondering where you were. I just love it when pull-your-hair-out problems turn out to be easily solved. Thank goodness you didn’t ditch poor Cora, only to find out that you didn’t have to. So good to have you back filing our heads with your flapdoddle and twaddle.

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    • Janis, you said it. I’m glad that I didn’t buy another computer before Z-D got back home to check on Cora. I thought about it, but was too bummed to even look at new ones. All-in-all this story ended on a high [inexpensive] note and I’m grateful.

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  19. Welcome back to Cora and you! I’ve had outlet issues myself, thus your tale wasn’t shocking to me. When my laptop died, I thought perhaps I’d swapped out the a/c plug for its charging plug, but my news was more dire. A blown motherboard on a two year old computer, whose only name was *unprintable* Asus. Glad your Cora is in fine fettle. 🙂

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    • Margaret, I’ve never had outlet issues so the thought never crossed my mind. Kind of silly in retrospect, but there you have it. A 2 y.o. computer shouldn’t die. Sorry that happened to you. Botheration.

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  20. Yep been missing your and your twaddle. I might be leery of keeping the surge protector if one of the outlets is malfunctioning. Who knows when the next one goes? What if it is right in the middle of one of your greatest flapdoodles? Surge protectors are much cheaper than a new Cora. Anyway, happy to see you!

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    • Janet, you make a good point. I will buy a new surge protector strip, just to be on the safe side. Sometimes I’m too frugal for my own good. Happy to be back here, although for the life of me I don’t know what I’m going to write about next. 🤔

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  21. I’m so glad this had a simple, straight-forward solution (I assume a new surge protector has been ordered/acquired). Sorry for the roller coaster ride of emotions, but it’s good to have you back in my inbox !

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    • Dan, buying a new surge protector is on my to-do list and I’ve learned a lesson about how those strips work [or don’t work]. Kind of silly to say but it never dawned on me to check the whole strip to make sure each outlet worked. 🤷‍♀️

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  22. Glad to see Cora was brought back from the dead with little to no effort or cost. Huzzah indeed! I had a similar issue a while ago. Bought a brand new all in one…. kaching!… and a few months later? The black screen of death. I was distraught…. until I realized I had vacuumed under the desk and jarred loose the cable to the monitor.
    No good can come from cleaning I tell you!

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      • Yes, you won’t do that again Ally. Cora is ecstatic that she gets to stay. I have a laptop I use mostly for pictures, that will be ten years old this year. It’s missing a few keys but other than that, it is still hummin’ along.

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  24. Ally, there’s nothing like a mouth to socket resuscitation to bring a computer (especially one named, Cora) back to life. Uh … on second thought, no. Better to just use good sockets. Otherwise—you might get a real charge out of life. Glad Cora is back up and moving around the internet again. 😀

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  25. At least you don’t seem to fall apart with the frustration. I will bawl like a terrible toddler and perhaps even throw things (beginning with said piece of sh** hardware). I admire your patience. So glad it was a free fix!

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    • Eilene, in this case I was more irritated than frustrated. I expect so little from technology that when it works I consider it a miracle. And when it doesn’t work, oh well whatever. Still, happy to be back among the blogging crowd.

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  26. I’m so happy for you! Computer things can be devastatingly frustrating.

    We had frustration in our house, with six of us wanting to use the internet last night. The modem seemed fine, but the router was dark. It turned out that John fell asleep listening to New York radio, and his foot hit the plug for the router. We felt victorious when everything worked again.

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  28. How annoying! But at least it was something simple and Cora is okay. She’s probably been wondering why you’d been neglecting her for so long. Poor Cora. But, if there is a bad outlet in the surge protector, does that mean there aren’t enough good outlets left to plug in your charger? Could one simply put the charger on the side of the desk away from the coaster? How did it all turn out? Inquiring minds want to know!

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    • Betsy, I’m thankful it was a simple fix. I never thought to double-check the plugs on the purge protector strip. [Obviously.] The phone charger didn’t have enough cord to allow it to be plugged into the back of Cora [on my right] and then reach to the other side of the desk [on my left]. That’s why Z-D changed how + where the phone charger was attached to an electricity source. Now that everything is working, it’s much better for me to have the phone charger away from the coaster on which I put my coffee mug. In the overall it was, and is, a good idea.

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  34. Welcome back! Methinks where you went wrong is not accompanying Z-D to Colorado. Everything is better in Colorado. Granted, this would have done nothing to solve your computer problems, but you’d have been more Zen about the whole thing because… Colorado. 🙂

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