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4.22.2005

Excuse Me Sir, You're Strap Is Loose

So I had this laptop, right? Right?
Right. Laptop. Yup, laptop.

I also had this backpack, and this particular backpack would occassionally liberate itself from my grasp as I attempted to swing it onto my shoulder.

And to complete the setup I also may have happened to possess a tremendous lapse in judgement when it came to protecting my new source of electronic joy. (All readers with a dirty mind may now exit the blog before they pervert my message of electronic joy into something that it most likely is not.)

So, the laptop was simply wrapped in a soft cloth bag and resting between two binders in my backpack. . . it didn't expect a thing. I'm in the lobby of the Hacienda (my home away from home away from the road between treks) and it's the first day of our training trip for the new job. We get a little spiel about out trip and then comes my mistake. I was in a good mood, looking forward to meeting new people and learning new things (even if that sounds like something out of an after school special) and I sorta swung my backpack up onto my shoulder. Only the backpack didn't make it to my shoulder. Round about the time that the backpack reached the apex of it's arc during it's journey to my shoulder the bottom strap slid quickly and cleanly through the clasp that is attached to the padded shoulder strap.

Quickly and cleanly the strap also made it's way across my palm and deftly avoided my grasping fingers. My backpack and my laptop proceeded to plunge almost six feet to the floor which is simply concrete covered with a thin rug. Good times.

My wallet leapt into my throat and attempted to throttle my brain.
Initially my brain did it's best to cooperate with the strangulation attempt seeing as how the original 'tremendous lapse of judgement' had been brought forth by that very object. Thankfully my medulla oblongata noticed that I was falling over and as it helped me right myself it managed to communicate with a few other parts of my brain and finally the grey matter performed as it should and kicked my wallet back down into my pants.

The wallet, of course, had no right to be angry since it's only function should be to be as full or as empty as the brain commands it to be. Stupid wallet.

I didn't even have the will power to look at the damage.

(ed note: Somehow this wonderful website design just deleted the second half of this entry before I could post it. Since I'm running late in my plans to plan for my first trip I will attempt to pick it up later. . .or maybe I'll just wrap it up now.)

The story will now become anti-climactic. I took my laptop to the Apple store in SF two weeks later. They wanted over a thousand dollars to fix it. "No, thank you," I said. My cousin and his friend were going to fix it but there would have been wine involved and no guarantees. Instead my cousin found a small, but solid, shop to take it to. The guy will only charge me sixty-five bucks initially and then we'll see what needs to be replaced.

Here's to technology. . . and dropping it on concrete floors.

Cheers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you seem to be tilting towards an adamsesc style. condolences. Being a most unfortunate incident/loss, bravo on the portrayal of said incident/loss. Silver lining.............good story. albeit expensive.