Today, I dropped my laptop.
Unfortunately, I dropped it at a location where I wasn't able to whip it out of the messenger bag (slightly padded but I *really* dropped it hard) and test it out. So, all the time I'm having lunch with my friend, I was distracted by the thought that I had broken my computer. (BTW, lunch was Dim-Sum at Sun-Ya Restaurant on 7th & Wells - mixed reviews on CitySearch, but I thought it was good.)
You have to understand, my entire existence is managed with this computer. Where to be, when to be there, what to do, emails, phone numbers, communications, tasks - everything is in my computer. When Marlo asks me to do something for her, I say, "Send me an email or I will forget and won't be doing it."
Last November, mid-way through my first quarter of law school, I also dropped my laptop. That time, it wasn't in a padded bag. I stuck my foot underneath it to break its fall and ended up injuring my foot so bad it took weeks to heal. After that escapade, I started using Mozy's online backup service.
Anyway, this afternoon, after *finally* getting to a location where I could test out my computer, I pulled it out of the messenger bag and inspected it for damage. The corner of the lid was separated. I pushed it back together, opened the lid and hit the power button. It stopped midway through the boot-up and said it couldn't find a boot-able drive. Then, it proceeded to run some sort of diagnostic test where it looked for the hard drive, memory, videocards, etc. The whole time it ran this test, which took about 40 minutes, I kept staring at the little red circle with an X through it that indicated that something was wrong with my hard drive.
I tried calling my friend Jeff (Anjali's husband) midway through the test in an attempt to not completely burst into tears before knowing definitively that my computer was shot, but he doesn't answer his cell phone at work. Of course, my mantra during this time was, "I am such a dumb-ass. I'm hosed. I have a Motion in Limine due on Monday. I'm a dumb-ass. I'm such a dumb-ass." Thus, the title of this post.
The good news is that Melanie called me midway through the diagnostic to chat on her way home. She dismissed my panic and said, "Oh! I've dropped my laptop before. Something probably just jiggled loose and needs to get pushed back in." I thought she was insane. However, I looked at the sides and bottom of my computer and saw that a little door was pushed out on the right hand side (I don't know what it was, but it had a green memory-board type of card with little gold braille-type dots, etc.). I pushed it back in and when the computer was done testing, told it to reboot.
As you can see, by virtue of reading this post, that all is well and my computer is fine. However, the fact that I dodged the bullet on this one doesn't negate the fact that I'm a dumb-ass for dropping it in the first place.
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