Let's take another look at that old adage about bad things happening in 3s. This time, it seems to be true. First, I had to take my car in to get its power steering looked at. I grew up with hydraulic power steering, but I couldn't find the power steering fluid reservoir, so I had to take it to the shop. I also asked about new tires, because I knew those were coming up on being bald.
In order to fix the power steering, they needed to get me a replacement steering column. Or for about half the price, a 'gently used' one. I opted for the used one. Plus, when they were looking underneath at my tires, they noticed all sorts of problems with the tire rods, and whatever else they found. My eyes kind of glazed over when they started listed all the things that needed attention. So, 10 days later, I finally got my car back, along with a whopping bill to go with it.
That was item #1.
Next, my 15-year-old computer turned itself off in the middle of a rainstorm. Now, when a computer is that old and is put through its paces nearly every day, you start expecting problems. For the life of me, I could not get the computer to turn back on and stay on. It wouldn't even get to the point where it wanted to know my password. That was on a Sunday, so the next day, I got up and disconnected the CPU from everything and ran it to Geek Squad, since it was under contract. Their 'make an appt now!' app gave me half an hour to get there, but their store is a pretty solid hour's drive away, so I was late.
Wouldn't you know it, they plugged it in, attached a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and the CPU behaved beautifully! Slow as molasses getting started, but that was normal. Just to be sure, I left it with them to do a diagnostic, and when I got home, I dug out a MacBook we only use when we're traveling. It works okay for checking email and composing rough draft, but is lousy at formatting or looking at Word docs you've already created.
But it would surf the net, so I kind of got through the 4 days my old computer was in the shop. When I finally got to pick it up, they had diagnosed it, updated it, and couldn't find any malware on it, so the bill was $0. I was so happy!
Still, I'm counting 'computer in the shop' as bad thing #2, because I got very little work done that week.
And it turns out that I went to the grocery store the day I was going to pick up my computer, and when I got home, I accidentally left my cell phone in the car. It was hot that day, and the windows were up, so when I climbed in in late afternoon to get my computer, I found my fone had been fried. Well, half fried. It still counts the steps I take (yea!), and it will still send and receive texts. But it won't send or receive phone calls. Won't even try.
I've done some preliminary research to find a replacement, and finding something that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and have all sorts of bells and whistles that I will never figure out how to use is not easy. I'm used to an android, and even those are getting pricey. I even looked at jitterbug and alcatel flip fones. I like the idea of a flip fone that won't spend its time taking pictures of the inside of my pocket. But the downsides of the alcatel add up to quite a bit; the screen size is 2.8 inches, so I'd have to carry a magnifying glass to try to read it. It's not water resistant. And the battery life is 6.5 hours. Okay, I guess I'm back to look at androids.
Actually, I'm not looking at the time. I've decided not to get a new one until after our vacation, about mid-August. I asked one of my sons to look at my carrier's website and see if he could find something I could live with. But this item is probably going to cost me. Not to mention all the left-over minutes I have that won't transfer to a new fone.
So, a semi-fried fone is Item #3.
That's it. That's 3 bad things. I'm done now. Everything is going to be smooth sailing and peachy fine for a while.
Won't it?
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