A Miracle?

Against my better judgment, I allowed a salesman to come in and give me a quote on windows in the evening while still in the throes of catching up with work that had been piling up. If you don't know, my laptop is back at the shop for the third time in two weeks, putting me out of commission for several days. To a software consultant like myself, that qualifies as a death knell.

So the guy came in, sat at the table, pulled out a laptop, and started going through a Powerpoint presentation about his company and its products. Just as a typical sales presentation, it was full of fluff eating up my valuable time which I could ill-afford.

'Just get me the price and the product,' I said to myself while trying to be polite. Then he pulled out some samples and continued to rave about the products. I thought he came pretty close to saying that his windows would turn my house into a magnet for supermodels.

'Oh Lord, please get him out of here. I've got work to do. Now is not the time to think about supermodels.'

That was all I could think of as the light at the end of the tunnel was nowhere near.

Then he proceeded to do a "demo" which required him to plug his apparatus to an outlet. I said, "Sure, go head. Plug it into the surge protector on the floor."

Nothing could have prepared me for the next turn of events. As he was fumbling around to plug his equipment into the outlet, my computer went off. HE ACCIDENTALLY UNPLUGGED MY COMPUTER!

He apologized profusely as I calmly turned the computer back on to watch it reboot. I was in the middle of composing a long email. As the computer came back on, I attempted to launch Outlook to see if the email had been auto-saved, BUT EVERY SINGLE PROGRAM HANGED! NOTHING WAS WORKING! You name it. Internet Explorer, Outlook, Word, etc. And I mean EVERYTHING.

He looked increasingly more nervous, but I tried to assure him that those things happen. But the machine still refused to show signs of life, which started to get me nervous. With what had been happening with my laptop and the drama surrounding it, this was the last thing I needed. There are three projects due this week. My customers are getting impatient. MY LIVELIHOOD IS AT STAKE.

Even after several reboots, the machine refused to budge. I murmured to myself, "Oh no, I may have to install everything from scratch," which at that point, the guy abruptly packed his stuff (and there was a lot of stuff he brought with him) up, and headed out to the door. Obviously the show of mounting distractions put on by my computer made it impossible for him to continue the presentation. I tried to tell him one more time not to worry about it and that it was not his fault.

Are you ready for this? As soon as I heard him drive off, ALL THE PROGRAMS THAT HANGED INSTANTLY CAME BACK TO LIFE! IN UNISON! This is no joke. And the email that I was in the middle of before he killed the computer was found completely intact.

A miracle? You better believe it.