It’s 3:15 a.m. Monday, not my favorite time of the week, but it’s my task, so the Sentinel will be ready for the early Tuesday morning deadline at our Houston printer.
My first goal, as it is for many of you, is making coffee to get that jolt of caffeine for the day ahead.
I go back to our newsroom, where all of our computers are.
In a previous life, the room was our home’s main dining room.
It’s still that today, except on a much more casual dining basis.
Anyway, the coffee maker in our house does its job quickly.
So I go into the kitchen, fill my over-large cup and hold it at chest-level.
I do that so I remember I’m holding a cup of coffee.
I suffer from ADHD, so I use every trick I can to keep my attention focused.
I’m almost back in my seat at my computer, when my inattentive foot has caught something a quarter-inch high.
Of course the coffee splashes out of said jumbo cup onto my desk calendar and my newish keyboard.
Panic mode has set in because this isn’t my first rodeo for spilling fluids on electronic devices.
I go through everything I can think of – no use enumerating those failures – to keep the inevitable from occurring.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the 2003 Marvel movie Daredevil, but there’s a scene where the young Daredevil to be is splashed with a chemical that ultimately causes his blindness.
I’m assuming most folks know Daredevil is blind. The film shows the circuitry of the eye shorting out.
I think that’s what my keyboard did this morning.
By then it’s 3:30 and I’m faced with the decision of waking the two females in my life, MaLinda and Jessica – both of whom know computers far better than I.
So I choose Jessica because she’s the family IT person, but she is definitely not a morning person.
The problems I’ve created with the keyboard drowning and the editorial software are mounting.
So Jessica – somehow unhappy to be sharing the early hour with me and confronted with computer malfeasance goes and awakens MaLinda.
And I still have a full Monday ahead.
It’s 7:15 p.m. as I write this.
It’s been a long day of living with my lack of grace.
The girls have treated me far better than I deserved, because I haven’t accepted my clumsiness.
Tomorrow is another day.
I’m now working with an ancient keyboard, but I’ve muted complaining.
Tomorrow will be better. I’ll look where I walk.
