Why Olivia Owes Me $49.95

I'm not sure how this is going to work, but Olivia owes me $49.95. She doesn't get an allowance nor does she have a job, so I'll probably never collect. But she still owes it!!!

Olivia helping me write this blog.

Maybe I should back up a bit.  Olivia is a wonderful black Persian who inhabits my studio because, well, she likes to beat the other kitties up.  Here favorite thing is to be hugged and scratched, which means she's on my lap while I use my computer, as in the photo above.  So, I'm sitting here at my laptop, reading an email, with Olivia in my lap. She's half asleep so I stop scratching. At some point she realizes I have stopped so she encourages me to continue scratching by stretching up and then moving around. I get done with the long email, go to reply, and the cursor won't move. D* my laptop broke.

I dig out the old manual for the old computer since the laptop came with nothing. (Hey HP, some of us did read the manuals at times!) I tried a few things. Nothing -- that little buggery won't move. So, out comes the battery, wait, reconnect,... hmm, cursor will move when I log onto the computer but once it's to the desktop, nope, not going to move. Then I notice the strange icon in the lower right side. D* my laptop has a virus.

So, I call a local computer place. They are not open on Mondays, which of course, it was. I call another place. Well, we can work on your laptop on Thursday. Great. Finally, I breakdown and call HP Tech Support. Of course, this laptop is out of warranty but I'd rather pay $49.95 now to get it fixed than wait forever. Besides, if it was a virus, they weren't going to charge me. Nothing to lose. So I'm transferred all over the Indian subcontinent and I finally get Amy. (Thanks to years of Indian math professors, I'm fluent in Indian English.)Bless her heart, she calmly walked me through this procedure. Nope, not working. So she has me do this other stuff. I didn't even know you could do it, so it was neat to do, but it didn't help. She starts talking about touch pad failure. D* my laptop is back to broken.

Finally she says, is there a red button on the touch pad? DUH, the stupid sign goes off above my head. I poke the tiny red light, it changes to white, and my cursor is now freely roaming all over!!! Problem solved.

But wait, there's more. Since Amy is new, I have to talk to her supervisor about the service and the problem. So, I have to explain to Crystal (interesting how these Indians have such normal American names?) all about how stupid here didn't know there was a way to lock a touchpad. I've program VAX's, I've coded in 6 languages, heck, I've used keypunch cards -- I felt like a total idiot -- not knowing there's a way to lock a touch pad.

I suppose I should be grateful to Olivia for helping me learn something new about computers, but hey, I wouldn't have had to learn it if she hadn't locked it for me in the first place. She owes me $49.95!!!