While drinking my morning coffee I put my laptop down on the stool and the cat decided to sit on the keyboard. Big gray kitty, mean kitty, bad kitty, the same one who ran away from home resulting in destroyed mailboxes and climbed on the roof requiring rescue by hunky fireman. Well, the hunky fireman part wasn't too bad, but that mailbox cost me a mint.
So I grabbed the cat to shoo her off the keyboard, but she decided she quite liked sitting there and wasn't in the mood to move. Couldn't budge her with one hand and it took both hands, plus the DH's help to get the evil kitty off the keyboard.
Now, this is not a small kitten. No, Bonnie Blue is almost seven years old and although she is quite light, she has a heavy footstep apparently.
Cat banished and coffee finished, I reached for my laptop. This is the same computer that contains copies of all my WIPs and completed manuscripts, so you will naturally realize I would be very upset if anything happened to it. I pulled my lapdesk into place, and slid my finger tip across the touchpad ready to begin my morning work. Nothing, nada, zelch the cursor blinked evilly at me from the center of the computer screen. You can imagine the choice words that fell from my mouth as I tried in vain to get the computer going.
I yelled for the DH, he's my computer guru. "Honey, the cat killed the laptop."
He came instantly and reached for the computer. Nothing he did would get the thing to move. He threatened the cat with bodily harm, then said, "Well, I promised you a new one for your birthday, what kind do you want?"
I reached for my precious laptop, all my files were on it! I tried to shut it down, but couldn't get the cursor to move to click the needed button. I tried using the arrow keys, but they only worked on certain screens and none were helping. I hit the power button and counted to ten, the dang thing went into suspend mode. When I hit the power button again it came back in the same shape without rebooting. Aaargh, this was so not good.
DH took the battery loose and killed the computer. Then we replaced the battery and restarted it. I hit the f2 key and tried to restore. It came up and still the cursor would not move.
Beginning to panic, I rebooted it by unhooking it from the power cord to make it shut down. Battery has been useless since it was a new notebook more than four years ago. Same result, with the exception that the cursor moved for a second while the puter was loading. Hummmmmm.
Put the laptop back on the stool, which was what started this entire nightmare and went to my old laptop where I googled touchpad not working.
The first thing that popped up, I kid you not, was the title Cat and touchpad. I quickly scanned the article. Seems that there are keys that will shut junk off. One of those being a command to disable the touchpad. Scrolling down I found the code the cat had used to sabotage my laptop and quickly restored the touchpad function. All this while the DH had gone to take the garbage to the dump. By the time he returned I was happily surfing and reading email. Oh, yes and working on the WIP.
Anyone need a spoiled, evil blue Russian Cat?
I felt bad for laughing until the story ended okay. We can all relate to your panic! What about the new laptop?
MM,
I promise to help you put your arse back on when we meet to critique, since you laughed it off at Bonnie's adventure. Yep, I'm gonna hold him to the new laptop, he even asked if I wanted a Mac. Very tempting.
Great cat story. She's beautiful that evil blue lady. I'm so glad you got your computer back up. May I recommend an external hard drive and a weekly backup? I'm preaching what I don't practice!
What a scary hour you must have had. We've all been there-panicing that we've lost everything, and sometimes it does happen. Luckily for your cat, your computer lived to see another day.
Oh, that is one smart cat, and bad, and pretty. LOL. Thank goodness everything turned out well.
Never had my cat sabotage my computer. Thibault was too smart for that. He knew who dished out the kitty-kibble. Did have one which used to walk across the piano keys and play some weird tunes, though.
Linda,
I posted this and blooger ate it, so I had to recompose my response. Yes, I have an external harddrive for back ups. Bought it the last time my puter crashed. No, I haven't backed up lately. But I dug it out and I'll do it right now! I know how important backups are. I once had to re-input 3 years worth of technical data because the clerk responsible didn't do the back up and the system crashed. Luckily for me, I had backup for the previous 7 years. Over time was great, but the work was hard!
Patrice,
Yep, the cat has used up about 6 of her 9 lives. She'd better be careful around my computer!
Autumn, she is smart and I think she is evil, especially when she wakes me early in the morning. But she belongs to the Granddaughter, so hurting her or getting rid of her is out of the question.
Toni,
If we had a piano, I'm sure Bonnie Blue would play it too. As it is she has actually typed on the desktop. Like I said, she is one smart and mean cat. I don't speak cat-on-ise, so I don't know what she said. But the dog doesn't trust her and that's enough for me.
In case anyone needs to know, the keystrokes to disable the touchpad on Toshiba are hold down the function key and hit f9. Smart cat, huh?
What a gorgeous evil cat she is! But I agree about the backups, because she might try it again. Why not email yourself the files you're working on every day, and backup to a stick or a hard drive every week or two?
What a fright! I would have been hysterical. I did lose some WIPs one time and I'm a compulsive backup saver now...Glad everything turned out well...Good luck with your writing! And NO! my dachshund wouldn't like a big gray cat! LOL
it's growing back already! Take the Mac and run!
A friend said she used emailing her manuscripts as back-up. but Yahoo lost her older stuff.
I dug out my Seagate portable drive and attached it, now I'm all backed up. Norton is green and happy, no blinking red lights. The cat will try again, no doubt. Judy, too bad you doggie wouldn't let you have our evil meanie. But then our little doggie would grieve if we got rid of her kitty. They been together since they were babies.
Barbara,
She is really a beautiful cat. And, as cats go, she is okay I guess. She likes to sit anywhere you don't want her to sit. I saw a cup today that said, "If cats could talk, they would lie to you." Loved it.
Hysterical story! You do need to invest in a pen drive to back up your manuscripts, though. Just in case she reads the manual next time. :)
My cat was well behaved. Wendy never came close to my computer, It was my granddaughter who at two, touched a key and flipped the screen 90o. Yes everything went horizontal. Three computer specialists, DH, son and SIL spent three hours trying to figure how to fix it while I promised all the candies on earth to little Julia if she told which key she touched. To no vail. My son finally fixed it.
I am like a maniac regarding my poor old computer, because all my WIP's are on there. Yes, I know I should back them up, but I don't.
Gotta love cats!