Entries

Chase

Sage and Todd are playing online backgammon.

Sage The cats are not fond of is not fond of Ozzy Osbourne.

Todd You’re listening to Ozzy?? What song?

Sage “Crazy Train”

Todd He’s eeeevil.

Sage This sounds like Starship.

Todd Be scared of him.

Todd The song “Bark at the Moon” is a little more eeeeevil. But in a Sir Simon Mulligan sort of way.

Sage Ozzy built this city, he built this city on rock and rooo-ooo–oooooolllll…

Todd Actually “Crazy Train” came out first. Ozzy created the Starship sound.

So when it came time to buy a laptop, I campaigned against Dell and for Sony for the sole reason that a Dell would be mail-order, and a Sony VAIO would be an instant gratification go to the store and get one righthisminute. And boy, am I sorry. It’s had an overheating problem since I bought it. I sent it away to be repaired once, twice, and then a third time. After a week, Sony emailed me with the FedEx Overnight tracking number, and on the day it was set to arrive, I bookmarked the tracking information and checked it obsessively.

When we lived at the yurt, the term “FedEx Overnight” meant, “We may get it to you. If we can make it up the mile long driveway, and we brave the dogs, and by ‘overnight’ really what we mean is ‘within the week’.” Sometimes it meant, “Your package has made it to Memphis, Tennessee! Isn’t that great? It’s…well, to be honest, it seems to want to stay here. Forever. And ever.”

So when the tracking site announced that my laptop was being “Held At The Memphis Facility”, I held off until around two p.m., when I finally called them and said, “Okay, people, the laptop is meant to arrive here in two hours. Unless you’re planning to rent a helicopter, I don’t see how you’re going to meet your deadline.”

And they said, “Um, your package has made it to Memphis, Tennessee! And…you know what? We’re going to call you back as soon as we find it.”

But to my surprise, they did find it. “We found your package!”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news, thank you.”

“It turns out that your laptop didn’t make the flight out of Memphis this morning. But we’ll have it to you tomorrow.”

Poor laptop. Running down the concourse as fast as possible, shouting, “Hold the plane!” but no one would listen to it.

When it did arrive the next day I gleefully plugged everything in and started up Photoshop, Rhapsody, my web browser, and my email client at the same time, just because I could.

Then, abruptly, the screen went black. “Entering Hibernation Mode,” it announced.

I turned it back on. It went into hibernation mode. We fought for awhile, until I lost, and pressing the power button did nothing at all.

I called Todd. “It’s not fixed! It goes into hibernation mode! Now it won’t even turn on! Those fucking BASTARDS!“

Todd said calmly, “Maybe you should check the power cord.”

Huffily, I made sure that the cord was plugged into the back of the laptop, then followed it all the way to the…well, it wasn’t actually plugged into the wall, is what. I’d been running off the battery the entire time. I’m really glad I didn’t go with my first instinct and call the Sony repair people so I could scream at them about their slipshod repair.

Sage and Todd are playing online backgammon.

Sage I’ll be right back. Doorbell.

Todd Okay.

Sage, after a few minutes Ooo. Scary scary religiousladies.

Todd Who?

Sage EAT EAT EAT, religiousladies! Good lord.

Todd WHO WHO WHO?

Sage Religiousladies. At the door.

Todd Did you invite them to our solstice celebration?

Sage I should have gotten their photo for Freaky Friday.

Todd Chase ‘em down!

Sage They were very easy to put off. I think the crewcut scared them. I wish I’d had heavy metal blasting out of the stereo instead of a Broadway musical, though.

Todd Or Melissa Etheridge -

Sage They wouldn’t have gotten it.

Todd - and winked at the cuter of the three.

Sage Okay, Todd, there WAS no cuter of the three.

Todd Oh.

Sage 3 ladies, 192 lbs total.

Todd Scary.

Sage You know, what are religiousladies doing going around knocking on doors in this town anyway? I’m probably the only person within a ten mile radius who doesn’t go to church.

Todd Hee.

Sage Maybe it’s a church rivalry thing. “No, OUR Baptist church is the good one.”