Roasting Marshmallows

As mentioned in an earlier post titled Volcano Head’s Little Trick, my skeleton hurts. I could go into all of the reasons why it hurts but I don’t want to be accused of gilding the lily, not that I mind gilding lilies. In fact, if you have a lily or anything else that needs gilding, I’m your man. The point is that the lilies are piling up around here because I can’t sit in a damn chair for more than a few minutes at a time without falling to the ground and screaming out in pain, which brings us back to my skeleton.

As pretty much all of my current maladies are self-inflicted, I expect no sympathy. The only reason I mention it is because my blog life has suffered considerably and the excuses are beginning to wear thin. I will be forever grateful to Stucco for pointing out the obvious and suggesting that I get a “lappy.” At first I was a little confused about how a lap dance could possibly be the solution when in all likelihood it was part of the problem. Long story short, I was lying on the ground in a pool of my own tears when Stucco’s words finally made sense to me, “LAPTOP.”

So I did it. Longer story even shorter, I bought a laptop, it crashed and had to be sent for repair, which resulted in another five days of agony sitting at my desktop computer. The laptop found its way back into my possession, finally some relief, and it promptly caught fire in my lap. I would be most pleased to report that the flames were licking at my flailing legs as I tried to escape the inferno, but this particular lily needs no further gilding. I removed the battery, took the little bastard outside, and regained control of myself just short of unhinging the outer shell with ten-pound sledgehammer (not to be confused with a “slaghammer.”)

That was eleven days ago and the replacement laptop just showed up on my front porch twenty short minutes ago. I should be happy to have it I know, but the (documented) twenty-three phone calls it took to straighten out the mess have rendered me less that amiable at the moment. It appears that all of the logistical issues that I encountered stemmed from an obscure division within the computer manufacturer’s hierarchy called the “Smoke and Fire” department. I find it less than encouraging that they even have a “Smoke and Fire” department in the first place, but they do and I guess that turned out to be a good thing.

I haven’t mentioned the manufacturer by name because my dealings with them are not yet over and I might need them again. I’ll be firing up the replacement lappy for the first time as soon as I post this diatribe and who knows, I might be asking them to pony up for skin grafts or prosthetic limbs in the near future. I know from the few days that I had a functional laptop that it was the right thing to do. I could actually feel my bones re-stacking themselves in proper order. So now let the healing begin, or the organ transplants. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Oh yeah, I forgot, today's my birthday. Yea for me!