PC Hell

Today started uneventfully. BooBoo was feeling better and I was feeling a little worse. I tried to get some work done since the MIL is still here and the brain surgeon stayed home until about 8 a.m. because he had a dentist appointment this morning.

On the writing front, one of my favorite editors assigned me a news story for this month and I had another ghostwriting offer. It’s my second in the self-help psychology arena. It’s about sex. Writing a self-help book is like getting to play psychologist in a way. Since it’s about sex, it’s also like being a voyeur in a way. I also fixed the references and sent off the edits on a peer-reviewed medical manuscript for Critical Care Medicine. Am I boring enough yet?

Mostly, today was a day I planned to take off with the kids. And mostly, that didn’t happen. The brain surgeon had to take his mother a follow-up appointment with the cataract surgeon and decided to take the kids along. I took my evil laptop (PC) to my office to switch out the keyboard with a different one.

Oh, and when I say, “my office,” it really is one of my client’s offices. Annually, they have been one of my largest clients for the last few years. I use one of their laptops for work with their clients, so they service it when there is a problem. My beloved Sprint card (also provided by said client) works only in the PC, so it tends to get a lot of use.

Anyhow, the POC has been freezing and the “A” key came off in my hand the other day. IT had a spare for me to switch the keyboard out with, but of course, after 20 minutes toiling as a wannabe-IT guy, when I finally had both keyboards off and tried to do the switch, it didn’t work – there was a tiny connection difference despite both computers being R51s. Then my dear colleague, V, attempted to pull the “A” off the one we were supposed to switch with, but that too broke. Oops!

By the time we put it all back together, my laptop had clearly had it with me and we clearly f*d something up, because it kept freezing even before it would boot. So, we packed both up and called FedEx. Too late for a pickup.

So, I get in my husband’s car – which would be even more embarrassing than hopping in my minivan if I cared about cars, which I don't – and I head to the FedEx at Sunset and Doheney, next to BlowFish (I’m now linking to everything, just for fun, but this is actually a pretty cool sushi place – even though I only eat vegan sushi, which might just be an oxymoron) and, of course, there’s no parking and nowhere to turn around. On the second round, I get a meter, but there is no change to be had. I always throw mine in my car, but apparently the brain surgeon does not.

So I played meter roulette, dropped the two laptops in one box on the FedEx counter, ran back to the care and beat the meter maid. Whew.

But when I got home, the FedEx guy called to tell me anything insured for over $500 is subject to inspection. What? By the time that conversation was over, I purchased two laptop shipping boxes for 10 bucks each and paid 10 more bucks each to have the guy pack them.

I tried the “I have three small kids and can’t bear the thought of coming back there” sob story, but it didn’t work at all.

Now I’m on my Mac, which I prefer anyway. But what a pain.

I asked the brain surgeon to take Miss M to ballet, which is near a park where BooBoo and L-man could play. I don’t know why it is, but Miss M, who loves ballet and her other classes (since I try not to enroll her in anything she doesn’t love) has meltdowns and doesn’t want to go to class when the brain surgeon takes her. I think she is just trying to see what her daddy is made of. I coach him through what to do and say. He usually succeeds.

I need an editor. I write too much and I bore myself.

Toodles.