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Sunday morning I wake early from sleep, dreaming of the interview on Monday morning. Or was it today? No, IÙm sure it was Monday. A wave of uncertainty washes over. I jump from sleep to my computer and hit the power button before I feed our black lab who is whining to eat. When I return, the computer screen is black. I push the power button again. Nothing. I push the power button five more times hoping that the same action will yield a different result. 7 am. My husband wakes up to a blood curling scream.
“My computer crashed! It crashed! And I have to give an interview tomorrow morning!!!!” I didnÙt write down specifics since they were all in an e-mail from my editor, who is also out of town for the next week. All of my files are backed up, but my e-mail. I rack my brain- I have to remember. Where do I go? What time? Monday 9am. Where? A church in
North Raleigh .
7:45 AM. Calling Best Buy, we find out they open at 10am. Calming down, I keep myself busy, make breakfast, , fold laundry, sweep the living room, file papers.
9:45 am we arrive at Best Buy, along with another 50 people holding tickets to be the first to buy the Wii. At this point, I donÙt even know what Wii is, looking at the picture of a guitar on someoneÙs ticket. Already people in line are complaining. Once we make it into the store, a man pushes ahead of us in line. Barton bellows, “Excuse me!” Feeling guilty, the man backs off and insists we go ahead. The manager of the Geek Squad reads all the regulations for a 4-day information transfer, but sheÙll push it ahead this afternoon.
When we come home, I am already scheming backup plans. I call our great mentor Don, who suggests I call the paper through out the afternoon. Barton and I spend several hours looking at churches in north
Raleigh "I s it that one?"
"No, thatÙs too far out; itÙs this one over here."
2:45pm. I call Best Buy- taking over thirty minutes of recorded voices and being on hold to be told they canÙt find the manager. I just canÙt stand it anymore. I rush back down to the store trying not to mow down the gobs of people buying Christmas gifts. Finally, the tech. staff hands me a disk of retrieved files. They have to ship the computer out- for now, it remains dead.
8 pm. Barton and I stare at the computer screen of his old computer. First, the set up, creating a new log-on account and e-mail account. The sensor on the computer scrolls up and down, uncontrollably. There was a reason that Barton dumped this computer. 10pm We push file folder buttons to find the lost information scattered in some obscure place. 10:30 pm Barton finds it and we import Outlook e-mails. We have found it!!!!!
Monday 9am, early to the interview, downing coffee to stay awake. When I return home, I am wrangling with BartonÙs computer, taking three times the normal speed for me to type one word. And apparently it likes to freeze every ten minutes. Save. I hit save after every word I type.
Later, our mentor Don writes to me, “Remember, no matter what happens, it's not the end of the world. Keep repeating that and you'll be fine.”
IÙ'll be repeating it; trust me, IÙ'll be repeating it.
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