The Pain in my Brain

I recently emerged from lying on the cold concrete floor of my shop in the fetal position to write this entry. It is not easy to make me lay on the ground in such fashion, unless you are tickling me or enticing me with food. So let me just say right from the start that the reason for my pre-infant like behavior was talking on the phone for nearly thirty minutes with one of the dumbest people I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. Worse, she’s on her way here! (Kids, this is what happens when you forget to offer up your sacrifices in the morning…) Please allow me to vent and share the pain that I feel.

“This is Matt, how may I help you?” I answered the phone, full of life and energy at the hope of having a wonderfully wonderful day.

“Hello? Hello? This is Linda, hello? Are you Jason? This is Linda. Hello?” A raspy voice responded.

“I’m sorry, Jason isn’t in right now. Can I help you with something?”

“Oh shoot!” She spoke as if I had told her that her oxygen tank was missing. “Will he… um… will he be there… I mean… will he be there soon?” The voice became raspier with each passing word.

“No, he’ll be in this afternoon. Is there something I can help you with?” I responded, weary of what I was probably in for.

“Well, you see… this is Linda. And yesterday … um… Jason helped me with my computer.” She then went on to tell me how she had brought her computer in and had Jason look at it. “But he couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”

“Uh huh.”

“But, well, I, um, I brought it home, and, um, I, um hooked it back up, and, um, well, there’s nothing on the screen, um, I mean it’s all black. Is it possible that I did something wrong?” The raspy voice was really, really, really starting to annoy by this point.

*in my mind, I said “It is more than possible.”

*out loud, I said “It’s possible.”

She went on “Well, I’m looking at, um, the back of the computer, and um, I can see some cords.” Confusion enveloped her words.

“Uh huh. That is normal.”

“There’s a white one that comes from the monitor. Do I have it plugged in right? I just worry that it, um, might not be plugged in right.” She sounded as if she was going to have a panic attack on the spot.

“Where do you have it plugged in? Did you have to force it into one of the ports?”

“Well, it’s um, what does the port look like? It’s kind of really close to, um, two black cables. Does that sound right? What if I have it plugged in wrong?” The anxiety in her voice redoubled. The raspyness (that really needs to be a word) was becoming unbearable.

“If you have it plugged in wrong, it won’t work.” I replied. I then did my best to describe what the correct port looks like, and that there might be two of them. It was like teaching advanced neuroscience to an infant.

“Well, um, could the monitor be bad? It’s like thirteen years old.”

“Thirteen?”

“Yes, but its always worked fine before.”

“I see.”

“I have two, um, BSP’s plugged in right next to each other. There’s also a yellow cable. Um, could that maybe, um, have something to do with it?”

“…… …… …… Are the BSP’s rectangular on the end?”

“Yeah, I think so, what are they plugging in, um, to? I can’t seem to follow the wire. How can I tell where they are plugged in? And can this yellow, um, cord be doing something, um, bad?”

By this point I was looking for any razor blades within reach. I figured it would just be better to end things permanently. My wise physics professor’s advice kept running through my head. “Don’t cross the street, run all the way down the road.”

I could keep the dialogue going for another five pages, but I don’t want to risk any of you suffering irreparable brain damage. Suffice it to say that she didn’t remember anything I said for more than two seconds, which caused her to ask most of the above questions another four or five times. Eventually the call ended, with her claim that she would bring her computer and monitor into the shop for me to look at. After a few minutes I realized I was on the floor in the fetal position. The only thing that got me up off the floor was the knowledge that I am going to eat a Gyro at the Pita Pitt for lunch today.

Hurray!