Day Five, January 10th, 2010

On Saturday, shortly after posting about my discovery of the magnetic wand, my husband noticed that my computer was "doing that thing again". This is going to be hard to describe, but try to picture this. You are trying to read The Guttenberg Bible, on a roller coaster, with a hangover and vertigo, each time you think you have focused on the words, the roller coaster dips and dives and you have an extreme case of the hiccups. The words start spinning and rolling, portions are light, portions are dark, and flash across the screen like bolts of lightning. I knew I was in trouble. So being totally non technical, I switched the surge protector on and off a couple of times, played with all the connections, plugged and unplugged stuff and then started to panic. I was having flashbacks to a year or so ago when I lost 3,000 plus pictures when my hard drive crashed. I thought maybe if I let it rest, it would feel better in the morning. I got up on Sunday, went to 7:00 a.m., Mass and after communion, I am ashamed to say, prayed for my computer. When I got home, I realized God was busy with other problems, real problems. I went on my husband's computer thinking maybe I could troubleshoot by googling a description of what the computer was doing and that brought me to the Dell website and a phone number for technical support. Okay, hope springs again. I grabbed the phone and dialed the number and after all the appropriate prompts and holds, I hear a voice that I immediately recognize as based in Mumbai. My heart sank. If you have ever had the fun of dealing with an outsourced call center in India, no explanation is needed . So we begin and I attempt to follow all the directions, but I have to tell you the accent is making it hard to understand. He starts saying something like forty dead leafy walnut trees, or more clay lace currants please. He keeps repeating, I just can't make it out. I handed the phone to my husband and all of a sudden, his face is beaming. Four days left on warranty! The computer is still under warranty for four more days! They will send someone out to fix it and it is all covered under our warranty. Yippee the joyful moment of the day!