Early Morning Jolt of Dismay

This morning, I woke up to the gentle sounds of public radio commentary as I prepared my breakfast. I carefully chopped up half of an organic banana to put on my whole-grain cereal. I turned on my laptop; then I remembered to plug the laptop back in, since I unplug it at night to save power. All in all, by 8:30 a.m., I was fairly pleased with myself and my progressive lifestyle.

My timing was off, however. The battery was nearly out, so the computer died just as I plugged it back in. No matter. I gave it a few seconds, then I pressed the on button.

Nothing happened.

I pressed it again.

Nothing.

I poked it three more times.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I checked the wall socket. Yup. I tried to turn the computer on again.

Nope.

I whimpered. I continued to poke, press, prod, plead, and pray. Then I had to go to work.

Clearly, since I'm posting this, things turned out okay. Upon the advice of Pieces and one other genius, I handily removed the battery myself. Once the pesky thing was extracted, the computer decided to work again.

But dude: that was one crappy morning.

Now I'm going to back up my files for the sixth time this evening.

P.S. Thanks to everybody who gave advice about the sock (I frogged and reknit) and who offered encouragement on the play last night (it went fine). Y'all are so nice.