Who Keeps Letting Her Near the Coffee?

Macbook = good.

Coffee = good.

Macbook + coffee = not so good.

Oh, yes.  Yes, I did.  And from here on out, I shall let the Ghost of Coffee Spills Past take over this post.

BIG, MEGA-DRAMATIC SIGH.  Seriously, folks, WHO keeps letting Lindsey near the coffee?  Haven't you learned?  Remember this incredibly embarrassing scene from 1999:

The scene:  Lindsey, sitting at the end of a row in a high school auditorium crowded full of probably close to 1,000 teachers.  It is the first day of her brand new teaching job in a brand new state.  It's an inservice day, and the mayor is speaking to the gathering of the entire school district teaching staff.  The auditorium is all clean, thanks to the very hard work of the summer custodial staff.  Lindsey sits relatively near the back of the auditorium with several other staff members from her school that she has just met.  Wait... what is that?  That ribbon of brown liquid running down the center aisle of the beautifully cleaned carpet?  As the mayor speaks?  To several hundred of her new colleagues?  Yes, friends, that's Lindsey's coffee.  And those are people pointing and whispering as it makes its way down, down, down the slanted auditorium floor.  And yes, that's Lindsey, sneaking out of the room with all eyes on her, headed to the office in the middle of a speech by the superintendent, to ask them to page a custodian... someone who probably spent hours the week before shampooing that very carpet.  And yes, 12 years later, when the entire school district convenes at one of their high schools on the first day every year for this same meeting, Lindsey is silently mortified.

Oh, and how about the time the trainers from Columbia University's Reading and Writing Project were hosting a summer course for teachers in her district and Lindsey spilled coffee all over her desk and all of her papers?  Remember that one?


Let's not forget the fact that Lindsey's own Handsome Hubby has joked on multiple occasions that you could brew a pot of coffee just by boiling Lindsey's car mats?  (Wait a second!  That one is totally not my fault - my car cupholders are an inch deep!  They don't hold ANYTHING!  If I let go of my travel mug for a second, it's a goner!)

Yes, that's probably why one time your travel mug fell right over into your teaching bag, upside down, soaking not only your lesson plan book but also a stack of kids' papers you had just marked.

Oh, that was years ago, get over it.

I can't, I'm the Ghost of Coffee Spills Past.  It's kind of my thing.

Fine.  Then get to the point.

The point is, this one is your piece de resistance, spilling coffee on your Macbook.  Your WORK Macbook.  Given to you by THE WORK THAT PAYS THE BILLS.  Paid for by work.  Intended for work use.  Not really yours.  You don't own it.  That Macbook.

Ok, but it still boots up... so... how bad can it be?

You might know that if your "b" key made "b"s still.  Or your "n" key didn't go "nbbbbbbbbbbbb".  Or your "h" key didn't make an apostrophe instead of an h.  Or your backslash didn't turn down the volume.

That last one only happened once.

Yes, but, Lindsey... you don't know if anything else is not working, because without THOSE keys working, you can't login.

I can't help that my work makes me use a 15-stroke password with letters and numbers and capitals.

Nice try.  You can't even type your name.

Ok.  True.

What do you have to say for yourself?

Um... I'm a bad, bad person.  And I hope they can fix it.

And?

And I'm glad it wasn't the machine my WiP is on?

That's what I thought.

photo by ReneS