Whatever is in the Big Round Hole is Needed to Charge the Computer

Red was a klutz long before he had neurological problems. When he was young and boisterous, his misadventures cost his dad and I both time and money. And for Red, it would eventually cost him a tiny bit more than just his dignity.

One day I was sitting on the couch using my laptop, with the dogs playing on the floor. I had the computer plugged in and charging, working diligently until Red went roaring by in a red fawn blur. The PC hummed along without missing a step, but I noticed that the screen got darker. It was no longer running on its AC adapter, because Red stumbled through the cord as he was charging through, pulling the cord out. The laptop switched itself over to battery power. I checked Red, who was temporarily tangled in the cord. He was more scared than anything, no worse for the wear, but the same couldn’t be said for my faithful computer. I tried to plug the power cord back in, but there was just one problem. There was no longer a port on the side of the laptop to plug it into.

It would have been much better (read cheaper) had Red pulled the cord out from the wall. I could have plugged it in and continued working with no problem. Red managed to do the opposite, pulling the cord out of the computer, leaving the plug in the outlet. Not only did he do that, but he pulled the plug out along with the cord, so there was no place to plug in the adapter. If the computer ran out of battery juice, it would shut down. There wasn’t any way I could charge it with a broken port.

It could have been worse; Red could have been hurt. He was fine, wagging his tail at my distress. The sidelined laptop was my writing computer, and not the household computer. That computer is safe in its confines of the home office. Both have weekly backups, so nothing was really in danger of being lost. Whatever I was working on at the time was safely backed up to the cloud, just in case. The situation was more aggravating than anything else.

The following day I brought my battle-scarred laptop in for repairs. I bristled at the repair person’s assessment that it was in fair condition. Sure, it had seen some mileage, but it wasn’t that bad, was it? I sheepishly explained that my dog got tangled in the power cord, pulling it and the port out of the side of the computer. It was fixable, but that would come at a price.

I was without my laptop for a little while, but it was returned to me with the ability to run off the AC adapter restored. They declared it in fair condition, yet now it had glue remnants from said “fair” sticker slapped on its lid. Insult to injury.

The laptop cord was the first cord that Red managed to destroy. He was left unscathed, but the next cord caused damage to both property and dog. More on that in my next post.

An Angel (When He’s Asleep)