I have the most kickassedest of computers (that is too a word, look it up). It is literally a mini laptop computer that actually fits inside my purse, and no, I don’t carry a duffel bag as a purse. Anymore. Not since my kids quit pooping themselves in public places. I have a typical grey leather, fairly utilitarian purse but with an edgy girly flair to it because it has several buckles. It’s like the purse a nun would carry if she were sent out undercover and needed to blend in with the rest of society, only she didn’t want to call attention to herself by carrying a big old flashy Satan purse.

So my awesome baby computer fits inside my perfectly normal purse, just in case I have a computer emergency. Believe it or not, even though I am not a high-priced attorney or a power player in the world of the stock exchange (I know so little about the stock exchange that I don’t even know if it’s supposed to be capitalized), every so often an English teacher/mommy/writer/novelist has a computer emergency, and I am ready like a Girl Scout.

But last night my baby computer turned on me. It was late, I’d only had a little bit to drink (way under the legal limit for sending emails), and I was writing the newsletter for the local running club. Yup, among my many publishing credits is the local runners’ newsletter. Suck it, Jane Austen. I write a weekly newsletter.

I wrote the entire newsletter, complete with very detailed accounts of what was happening in the local running scene, a listing of upcoming races, as well as one lost dog announcement, and the unthinkable happened. My computer got so bored with the material that it just quit. It didn’t die, or go into default mode, or start to smoke or anything, it was Just. So. Bored. I kind of was, too.

I tried for ages to retrieve the lost newsletter because I had poured an insane amount of unappreciated work into that newsletter, only to have sucked right off the screen. Well, I’m lying. I spent about three minutes looking for the lost newsletter, only to find it saved in the draft folder, which is a kind of unintentional safety net for those of us too stupid to stay off the trapeze in the first place. If I knew more about how technology worked, I probably wouldn’t have lost the newsletter to begin with, or had to spend another three minutes screaming my profanity-mantra into the microphone on my purse-sized laptop. That’ll learn me to buy a baby laptop when I really needed a huge desk-sized model, the kind more suited to inhaling important term papers or stock reports. Or Stock Reports, I don’t know which.