I’m missing keys again*.

One evening, E was being particularly well behaved and I let him play a game on my laptop. I left the room and when I came back, various keys had been liberated from my keyboard. The biggest key, the space key, disappeared completely and my dusty foray into the vacuum cleaner bag was for naught. (I wanted to use pretentious wording in the previous sentence. I also have difficulties spelling vacuum so I really am just frontin’.) (Incidentally, I think I’m parenthetically punctuating incorrectly. I’m never sure where to end with the punctuation.) Should there be another period after that closing parentheses? Why do I repeatedly consider these things and sometimes write about it instead of just looking it up? How did I live before Google? Are people as a whole smarter because of the collective consciousness that is Google (or rather the internet since Google is just the search engine.)? See, there is that parenthetical punctuation issue again.

Geez, is it any wonder I can’t write anything of substance? I write a few lines then get lost in parentheses and tangents.

Mike salvaged the remaining, non space keys and tiny white framing things that keep them attached to the keyboard and rearranged the missing keys so the letters were still there. He only found enough of the white things to re-add some of the keys so I’ve been typing for a few weeks without a space key, an alt and uh, something else. Incidentally, no matter how well or often a person types, it is damn hard to look at an empty keyboard and verbalize what goes where.

My laptop is three years old and came pre-loaded with Windows Vista. I am hoping Vista is behind my computer’s numerous delays, hung windows and general suckiness. The laptop has major performance issues and I’ve been hoping reformatting the hard drive and freshly installing Windows 7 (and maybe adding more RAM) will make using it more enjoyable and make me fantasize about taking a baseball bat to it ala Office Space less.

So, when E freed some keys, I decided I wouldn’t put up with this half-ass computer any longer! Then, I did. But now! I am transferring my files to the external hard drive (does anyone else find themselves wondering if a back up for the back up external drive is needed and then wonder where it will end?) in preparation for taking my laptop to a professional.

I find myself stammering like an idiot in the computer repair place and feeling like the father requesting “I Just Called To Say I Love You” in High Fidelity to the Jack Black techie behind the counter. “Uh, can you just, you know, make this thing work?” even though I know a fair bit about computers. Computer repair places are the new record stores for the pretentious!

Wish me and my hooptie computer luck!

*For those keeping track at home, they have done this to my keyboard before.

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