Saturday, November 22, 2008

When the husband is away.....

Last week my husband went out of town to a conference in Nashville, TN. He did invite me to come along, but since my last visit to Nashville didn't turn out so well (see 2007 blog Summer Vacation -The Storm) I declined. Instead, I opted to stay home and party.

He left on a Sunday and so I threw a Steelers football party. I say that loosely because I was the only one interested in the game. It was really just an excuse for Kelly and Jyoti (sans husband) to come over and hang out.

There was tons of food and drink. The children played in the back room and left us to watch the game. Kelly and I worked on our Football For Women radio show that we're thinking of creating for satellite radio. Jyoti played along by calling in with questions and comments throughout the game. We were having a jolly ole time and then my team got beat by the Indianapolis Colts. While this was very distressing I wasn't crying in my beer. Mainly because, well, there was beer. And Peyton Manning. Who doesn't love PM?

So, Kelly, Jyoti and I were sitting around drinking and eating and making comments on the late hour yet making no moves to shut up shop when my youngest appeared, her lower lip puckered out in a pout, tears trickling down her cheeks, and a horrible, horrible expression in her eyes.

Me: (shouting because I have my mom's gene of overreacting to emergencies that involve my c children): "What?"

Darcy: (whimpering) "Mommy..."

Me: (still shouting) "What? What? What has happened?"

Darcy: "Well, we were sitting around playing with the laptop and Sarina found this water balloon and it popped and..."

Me: (incapable of using other words, apparently) "What?"

Darcy (beginning to cry) "I got water on my laptop and now it isn't working."

Needless to say, chaos erupted with that one sentence. Remember that Connie gene?

I jumped up as if I had been shot. I ranted and raved. I took the laptop and briefly dried it with a hairdryer until somewhere through all my yelling and screaming of "why? why?" a thought popped into my head that maybe blowing hot air into an electronic piece of equipment wasn't too smart.

I scurried from one room to another carrying the laptop that my husband insisted on purchasing for his 9-year-old daughter for her birthday. Which I brought up more than once during my ranting. Kelly and Jyoti sat quietly on the couch watching me until I finally ended up on another computer (remember that is my husband's job so we are full of "electronic-ness" in this house) and I Googled spilled water on a laptop. And do you know what? Up popped several sites where we found several suggestions on how to deal with this problem.

Bottom line, we were told to remove the battery, to dry off the water, and to let it sit for 24 hours, and VOILA! In 9 out of 10 cases when firing that bad boy back up after that 24 hour period one will have a functioning laptop once again. Yeah right. Like I believed that crap. Hello? I would be that 10th person.

Husband (at least how I pictured him saying this): "And what were you doing when this happened?"

Me: "Watching football!" (thinking): "Uh, drinking liquor and laughing it up with the girls in another room?"

Jyoti got on her cell and phoned her computer knowledgeable cousin who told us to remove the battery, dry off the water, and let it sit for 24 hours. He had spilled an entire glass of water on his and it worked just fine. He was very calm and very nonchalant so we did what he and the Internet told us to do. Kelly removed the battery and I dried off whatever water we shook out of the laptop. Then we placed it on a towel and stared at it. Nothing happened so there so we began recreating the scene of the crime.

The girls were making a video with the laptop and their Barbies. They were on the floor by the Barbie drawer. At some point, Sarina, found a water balloon inside a Barbie bathtub. Not sure why there was a full water balloon in the house, but at least it was in a bathtub, right?

Sarina handed the balloon to Darcy and when Darcy took the balloon it burst. Out came the water which went on to the laptop. Not all of the water, we were told, because Darcy shut her hand around the break in the balloon. She passed the broken balloon to her sister who ran with it to deposit the evidence into the bathroom sink. Then the girls turned the laptop upside down and dumped out the water. Madison shut off the laptop, dried the water off, and tried to turn it back on. No, go.

Kelly, Madison, and I tried to deduce how much water could have come out of one balloon and whether or not the entire amount landed on the laptop. We decided it didn't matter.

What we did conclude was that this was not something we needed to bother the husband with.

Madison wasn't so sure this was a good idea. Darcy thought it was a fine idea. So did I. What could the poor man do? He was miles away having a good time. No since in ruining that. I made sure we were all on board with leaving Daddy the hell out of the equation.

The party ended and when Tom made his nightly phone call home, we listened to him talk about Nashville and I discussed the football game.

Forty-eight hours later, we decided to double the time to be safe, I fired up the bad boy and.....VOILA! The laptop started right us just as if nothing had ever happened.

Is that amazing or what? I love the internet. It's my new husband.

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