Today is Unnecessarily Difficult!

Cherished "Platinum Status" readers of Things That Exist will remember this post about an upcoming linguistics study. I later conducted this experiment, wrote a paper about it, got mono, and got an incomplete in my linguistics class because I was feeling too sick and tired to write my final.

Then, this summer, I was adjusting furniture in my living room and lifted the back wheels of the TV cart 1/4" off the carpet. This caused my TV to suddenly fall face first onto my open laptop, probably cracking the motherboard. This later caused the laptop to start dropping "packets" as my hardware-knowledgeable friends tell me, and eventually the laptop stopped working altogether.

Then, it's fall term and I'm not getting my financial aid check because of the incomplete from when I had mono. So I write my final and hand it in to my linguistics professor. But it also turns out that my experiment paper was never accounted for, which may have happened for any number of reasons that aren't worth figuring out. So I figure I'll just grab it from my university server space, my Gmail account, or the computer at my old job. But it turns out not to be in any of those places. However, I do remember entering my experimental data into my laptop, which is probably where I also wrote my paper.

So no problem! I'll just take apart my laptop, pull out the hard drive, put it in an enclosure that I have for no real reason, plug it into a computer, and retrieve my paper! To be as literal as one can about data, my paper is INSIDE the computer.

But the computer has very small phillips screws. I don't have a very small matching screwdriver. Once I have a tiny and very specific shape of metal, I will be able to buy food!

It's like something out of a very sad Charlie Chaplin movie or something.

But it turns out my roommate's boyfriend has such a screwdriver! Hurrah!

Also, I left my keys at work. Luckily and unnervingly, my bedroom window was unlocked and I was able to step over my windowsill into my bedroom. But now I can't leave the house because I'll be locked out, and I can't get my keys from work because I would need my keys to get into my office. (Yes, THE readers, I have an office now.)

Anyways, I still have some pictures of the art show to post! I'll do that after I liberate my paper from its screw-sealed prison. Also: pictures of this prison.