Thank God my laptop still works after I nearly killed it
with a cup of hot chocolate. I have never been so lucky in all my life. I thought that was it when the brown liquid
hit the computer square on the keyboard. I snatched that baby up and inverted
it straight away. Then hit the off switch to stop it from shorting out and
pulled the power lead. After screaming at the kids “Quick move get me something”
my hands were shaking covered in hot chocolate holding my laptop as the liquid
dripped over the carpet. One of the lads
passed me a tea towel and I frantically wiped down the keyboard keeping it
inverted as I did. All that was going through my mind was that was it I just
killed a 6 month old laptop that I really love and I will not have the money to
replace it.
After ensuring the outside was dry I laid it down on a chair
still upside down almost tent fashion with the laptop still opened and tried to
turn it on... nothing.. Not a thing happened... I was like oh shit... That’s it.
It’s not going to work ever again. Hands
still shaking I said to the guys to go and do their kitchen chores as I was
ready to snap and I did not want to take it out on them. I asked one of them to
fetch me the hairdryer and I set to work.
Closing the lid I sat it upside down and removed the
battery, seeing it wet my heart sank, crap... it got through the computer, that’s
it the motherboard is fried. I did not turn it off quick enough... grrr... I
did not give up though and I refused to lose my cool. I took off the cover for
the hard drive and there was no wet in there but it gave me access to the
motherboard vents to get more effective with the hairdryer. I continued on
drying it. Turning it over and opening the front up me dried through the keys hoping
and actually saying a little prayer that my little laptop will still find life.
After 10 minutes of frantic drying, I angled it so I could
see if it would turn on... A little blue flash caught my eye, then another,
then the orange one lit up and before I knew it I was on the sign on screen, I
let out a sigh of relief, my daughter looked at me. “See Mum I told you, you
caught it quick enough, those cat like reflexes did the job” I was not
convinced, I shut it down and reassembled the back, finally putting in the
power lead to see if I did not ruin that also. Restarting the computer and
getting to the sign on screen was the first obstacle now the next one trying to
sign in.
Sighing, my fingers resting on the slightly sticky feeling
keys I typed in my password. The message come up, wrong password. So I typed it
again and as I am typing I notice, when I hit the keys two letter were coming
up instead of one. Working out that it was typing an extra letter I hit the
back arrow and deleted the right one for when I pressed enter it starting to
log in. My heart lifted “It’s Alive!” I thought to myself. The first thing I
did was going to my user accounts and took the password off. I thought to
myself if it screws up more least I know I will be able to get the thing logged
in.
Then I opened a word document and began to type, oh my lord
it was bad. Most keys were typing the letter and a number, when I hit shift
nothing would happen. I started to panic. I love to write and have a very set
way of typing, I could not even use a question mark. What the hell was I going
to do? Sitting there the kids looking at me expectantly I could not lose it...
Not now. I have come this far keeping my cool so you would be damned if I was
going to lose it now. So I did the best
thing, I shut it down and then just sat it inverted on the table to let it dry
out for a while.
After about ten minutes I opened it up and checked the
screen to see if there were any sticky hot chocolate spots. No was still lucky
on that front... nothing leaking...
So I closed it again and left it. A few hours later I took
my laptop upstairs and started that baby up once more. It was smooth but when I
began to type... wow... the keys felt weird and there were capital’s where
there should not be capitals and the space bar felt all gooey. There were full
stops appearing all over the place. So I proceeded to pick off the keys and clean
them, and boy was there some gooeyness. Then I looked up on the internet what could
stop both of my shift keys to work other than gooey hot chocolate, well I
discovered that Skype has A tendency to take over your keys. SO I turned it off
and low And behold I had shift function.
It’s still touch and go, not my usual laptop yet but it’s
getting there. Going to shut this baby down now And give it a break but I
thought I would share the Halloween fright I had this year.
Sorry I have not been blogging these last few weeks. I have had
a bout of sickness but I feel that is another story for my next post. Fingers
crossed
