Get it together!

So in case you were wondering what has been going on with new postings let me tell you what the hold up is. Recently my laptop (my favorite communication device) has been on the fritz. For reasons unknown to me the gremlins decided to make ten keys on my keyboard in active. This doesn't seem like a problem, and it probably wouldn't be, if the use of the "P", "Delete" , "Comma", "Colon", "Semicolon", and a few other keys weren't a vital part of communication. Who knew? So to fix the keyboard I sent it into the warranty company to be repaired. How wonderful! Free repairs. All I had to do was wait 3-5 business days for an empty box to arrive so that I could send it in to be repaired in 7-10 business days. No big deal and no coast to me. Yay! Not so much. It took 13 days for the box to arrive, and I had to call to see where it was before it was finally sent out to me. Strike One. So I packed up my laptop lovingly and shipped it out. It felt a little like sending a kid to summer camp... if summer camp replaced hardware and gave lobotomies for bad behavior. I didn't think that I would find myself so worried about the safety of an inanimate object. Sometimes I surprise myself. After feeling cut off from the world for what turned out to be another 8 days (a span that felt like an eternity trapped in a genie bottle) I was very excited when the United-I'm-Afraid-Of-Your-Dogs-So-I-Honk-The-Horn-And-Make-You-Walk-To-The-Truck-To-Get-Your-Own-Package (I think that is the companies official name)driver arrived with my newly repaired laptop. Well that was short-lived. I excitedly opened the box.* I'm not going to lie: there was a warm feeling in my heart when I saw my laptop laying there. My euphoria, however, was short lived when I realized that it was splayed upside-down in the packaging with the battery unhinged and the recovery disks haphazardly tossed next to it. Why Mr. Computer Technician, what great packaging skills you have. Strike Two. I carefully replaced the battery and put the recovery disks back on the shelf and started 'er** up. The next few minutes went something like this: A blue screen? How strange. Yes, I want to start my operating system normally. I guess it's okay if that extension can't be started at this time. Wow! They really wiped this thing. Why isn't the disk drive opening? SON OF A BITCH!! So I called customer service who walked me through a troubleshooting operation that I already knew how to do. I got rather familiar with the exhalation patter of the mouth-breather that had to put me on hold 4 times while she "researched my problem." I can tell her the problem-- You sent my laptop into the work room the Friday before our last recent holiday to be fixed by a technician that was probably more concerned with whether the beer was on ice and the steaks were marinating than the well being of my laptop and my sanity. If there were such a thing as a 4th strike now would be the time that it would be awarded. Just sayin'. 49 minutes later I was set up to send my baby (I mean laptop)in again. Cross your fingers, break out your voodoo dolls, cross your T's and dot your I's, stand on your head, send some good joo joo my way. Hopefully, this time my laptop will be returned repaired to the fullest extent in a timely fashion. Apparently, I can use all the help I can get. *Which looked like it had been chosen by a force of delivery company inspectors that test the validity of packages with baseball bats and steel-toed boots. ** 'er: redneck/Midwestern dialect- slang - pronoun: used to identify an object; possible bastardization of "her"; often used to give inanimate objects a persona. i.e. "Get 'er outta there!" or "Start 'er up."