Reason #472 why my wife rocks

I have a story due for my class tomorrow.  I tend to write my stories in my head over time, and then get it all down on paper at a later time.  I work better with deadlines.

So I started writing this story on my computer Friday afternoon.  When it's done, it will be about twenty-two pages, give or take one or two.  I use Microsoft Word.  It came with my laptop.  I don't know all that much about Word.  I'm not the type of person who reads all about things before he uses them.  Give me the keys, save the owner's manual for later-that has always been my philosophy.

So I'm on page eighteen.  I'm starting a new paragraph, and the screen goes blank.  Zip.  Nada. There's nothing there but a blank white page.  I feel my chest tighten.  Must...stay...calm.  There's a logical explanation for this.  The story has to be somewhere.  So I minimize the page thinking I might have inadvertently started a new session.  Nope, that's not it.

Eyes are starting to bulge.  I click on the file tab and go to open.  I find the name of the story and try to open it, thinking maybe that I inadvertently saved and closed it.  Nope.  All that comes up is a blank page, under the story file.

Arteries constricting; breathing becoming shallow; where the &%^ is my story?  I have no clue.

So I do what all sane, rational people do in this situation.  I yell, and I yell loudly.  The words that come out of my mouth repeatedly are short and to the point: "NO!"

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!

I've lost the story, at least the physical evidence of it.  It still exists in my mind, but there is no way I am going to be able to re-write it in time for tomorrow.

I've reached DEF CON 5.  The "NO" is becoming louder.   The missiles are leaving the silo.  My wife comes downstairs and asks me what the problem is.  I explain between breaths into the paper bag.  Relax, she says.  You emailed me the first eleven pages this morning so I could read them, remember?  They are still on my computer.

My breath becomes a bit more controlled, and we descend to DEF CON 4.  But the email was sent seven pages ago, which means I would still have to re-write a whole bunch.  I decide that is not acceptable and start to rant again.  Kristen tells me to settle down and moves me away from the computer.  Don't touch anything, she says.  What did you do last, she asks.  I tell her that I don't know, obviously, otherwise I would have been sure not to do it.

This does not help.  She resists the urge to knock me through the wall.  A fate I would have deserved and understood, by the way.  Instead, she looks at the screen and points the cursor at the "undo" tab.  I have never heard of this option before.  As soon as she clicks on it, my story, in all of its full glory, reappears.  Everything is highlighted.  With a simple click of the cursor again, everything returns back to normal.  I call off the missiles and my breathing returns to normal.  Thank God for the fact that I met a woman who knows all about Word.

She thinks I am a raving loon, especially when I am writing.  I do not disagree.  You know what they say, behind every insane man is a rational woman who tends to go prematurely gray.

And upon investigating the cause of today's drama, I know what the culprit is.  It's the control key.  Well, maybe not the control key itself, but the fact that it is located directly below the left shift key.  Clearly, an insane man came up with this keyboard design, that would allow you to almost demolish a full piece of work because you actually hit control D instead of shift D.

And it's obvious that the insane man who did this has yet to meet his rational woman, because if he did, there's no way she would allow his keyboard to stay this way.