To think that all of these years, I thought it was just a phrase. "Don't hit the panic button." And here it is.
I spent all evening entering information into my laptop (a laborious process with assistive devices) only to discover toward the end that I was running out of juice and I wasn't sure I could save the last bit before I retrieved the plug with my reacher.
Grabbing my reacher and manuevering the plug off of the floor is a multistage process which involves dropping items quite a few times. Then I have to somehow get the plug into the side of the laptop and aiming it is a bit haphazard.
I could feel panic rising. I thought I would run out of time/juice before I could complete the operation. So I told myself : handle it like a NASA space mission. Heck, they lose bolts in space and don't even panic!
So I calmed down and broke the mission down into parts. The pre-operational stage was to name my objective: saving the data. I assessed the amount of juice left in my laptop and realized that I was heading toward the red zone so I cut short the analysis and pushed my arm through my quad reacher. (Yes we have special reachers for quadriplegics. Cool huh?)
As I did that, I looked for the laptop cord which was, of course, on the ground. I made my first attempt to retrieve it, which failed. So I terminated that mini-mission and tried again. Yet another misfire. On the third attempt, I snagged it. I reported that to Mission Control. OK so it was my cat.
SLowly I lifted the plug up toward my lap. It fell off of the reacher and landed right near the side of the laptop. Perfect landing!
At this point, it was time to use the same technology NASA does: duct tape. I stuck duct tape onto my knuckle, snagged the cord and made the first attempt to insert it into the laptop. Mission failure. Second attempt- failure. I checked out the juice.
Uh oh. My cat was now pointing at the laptop - hurry, hurry!
Two more tries and the cord went in. I happily reported that I was done with the mission and I was given clearance to proceed with other activities.
Like blogging.
3 comments:
Very funny. And you didn't drop any spare parts either! WTG
I got an email from gold that you had put up a funny post - he was right! I'm sitting here LMAO - excellent portrayal of a quad under pressure.
I was wondering how long you could go without that wonderful sense of humor of yours showing up on this blog, after you closed the other one. Thanks for the great start to my day with your delightful description of what I'm sure is a tedious event.
{{{HUGS}}}
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