©Mark
Ollig
A reader recently asked me
what the first column I wrote for the paper was.
After digging through the
archives, I found one from 1997.
It was the story about the
person (me) who spilled cappuccino-espresso coffee all over their brand-new HP
(Hewlett Packard) OmniBook laptop computer.
So, without further ado,
here is “A Personal Experience,” originally published Dec. 15, 1997, and
re-edited for today’s publication.
After drinking some fresh
hazelnut cappuccino coffee, I placed the cup on the desk next to my laptop
computer.
Over the course of the
next hour, I took great care in making sure I didn’t commit the cardinal sin of
all computer users: spilling something on the computer.
However, this time when I
reached for the recently refilled cup, it fell over and spilled coffee on the
laptop’s keyboard.
“I don’t believe I did
this,” I blurted out loud to no one in the room, except my cat, who was staring
at me.
After quickly
disconnecting power from the computer, I moved it off the lake of cappuccino
coffee which had pooled on top of my desk.
I ran into the kitchen and
grabbed a dish towel, ran back into the den, and was frantically wiping the
coffee off the computer.
It was too late.
The espresso and steamed
milk coffee had overwhelmed, and taken up residence inside my laptop computer.
Adding to my despair, the
cat was still in the room observing my hysterics and appeared to be smiling at
me.
After calming down, I
logically assessed the situation.
I placed the computer back
on the desk and pressed its power button.
Nothing happened. There
were no lights, no sound – no nothing.
You know that sinking
feeling one gets in the pit of their stomach when one realizes something
terrible has occurred?
Yep. That’s what I was
feeling.
A glimmer of hope arose
when I remembered the computer was still under warranty.
“I’ll just drop it off and
have it repaired or replaced,” I thought.
Before leaving the house,
I put fresh food and water into the cat bowls, and said to my meowing cat,
“Don’t make a mess while I’m gone.”
I placed the laptop on the
passenger seat of my car and drove off to where I had purchased it.
As I walked into the
computer showroom with the laptop tucked under my arm, a salesman walked up to
me, looked at my computer with the coffee stains on it, smiled, and asked if I
needed anything.
Yes, I know why he was
smiling.
“Well, I had an accident
and spilled cappuccino on my computer, but it should still be under warranty,”
I told him.
He smiled and walked over
to his computer to look up my warranty information.
By the way, I noticed
there were no coffee cups near his computer.
“The good news is that the
computer is still under warranty.” He said. “The bad news is that the warranty
doesn’t cover spills. We could look at it and see if it can be repaired,
though.”
Since I was there, I
decided to have them try to repair my laptop.
While watching the
computer technician working on my computer, I began to feel a little anxious;
he was having a difficult time removing the laptop’s cover.
“They seem to put the
screws on these computers in the hardest-to-find places,” the technician
nervously said to me.
I smiled and thought maybe
I should leave and come back later.
Reassuring the technician,
I said, “Well, I know how it feels to have someone staring over your shoulder
while you’re trying to work on something. I have a few things to do downtown,
and will stop back in a half hour and see how you’re coming along.”
“Thanks,” the technician
said with noticeable relief in his voice.
While driving, I pondered,
“Maybe I should have taken the laptop battery out to see if it would work only
with AC power. The battery itself could be shorted out.”
Thinking I had found the
answer and could save time, I called the technician on my car phone and asked
him to try that and see if it would power up.
A minute later I heard,
“Nope. Good idea though,” the technician told me.
I sighed.
After driving around for
30 minutes, I went back to the store to ask how it was going.
“It is working now!” said
the salesman, smiling as he approached me.
The technician had opened
up the computer and used a compressed-air sprayer to dry out the electronic
components.
“Shouldn’t be long now;
there is just one minor thing we are checking,” the salesman told me.
I nodded and wandered
around the store looking at the new computers on display.
Twenty minutes went by.
Walking back to the
salesman, I asked how it was going with my computer.
“We can’t seem to get the
mouse to work,” he told me.
“What mouse? I didn’t
bring it in with my mouse,” I said.
“The technician had
connected a mouse to your computer; it wasn’t working, so they thought there
was another problem,” he replied.
“You need to use the
specific mouse that operates with my laptop’s HP mouse driver file,” I
responded.
The salesman stood silent;
thinking about what I said, and then nodded his head.
“I’ll be back with your
laptop in a minute,” he assuredly said to me.
I got my laptop back
(after paying a nominal repair fee), and returned home.
After placing the computer
back on the desk, I powered it up.
Everything booted up fine;
my software programs (and mouse) worked as before.
This experience taught me
a valuable lesson: keep the beverage cups away from the computer.
I want to end today’s
column by wishing my mother, a happy 88th birthday, “Happy Birthday, Mom!”
