Honestly? I'll take the minor annoyances.

[mer]

Failed to put my 2011 parking tag in the window of my car. Ticket! Oh, fickle fiscal years that begin for me right after a long holiday... About every three years, I get stung.

Add to this a blister from my new shoes (interestingly placed on the side of my foot), my missing 32G thumb drive (it has to be SOMEwhere, doesn't it?), the horrid heat, the freckles popping up on my nose, and the complete discombobulation that is moving from one computer to another, and my life seems like a mass of petty annoyances.

But, for serious, I'll take petty any day over the big ones.

Now. If you were a 32G thumb drive, where would you be? Keeping in mind I've already cleaned out my purse and my desk, and had even gone so far as to reopen the cases on my CPUs in case I dropped it inside one of them whilst playing computer-transfer-hijinx. (I'd been using the thumb drive to transfer files, yes, I know it's inefficient, but it was only to have taken me six or so transfers, so it's not that inefficient.) At some point, Dann sat down at my computer to try and get the drivers for my old wireless card to work (they cannot), and thereafter--poof, no drive. He has not seen it.

It HAS to be here. Unless it has become a TARDIS, it has to be here.

The other ridiculous thing is that I didn't have Word for the new computer for about a week, and even though I did some writing on my netbook this weekend, I was actually beginning to experience some sort of unpleasant writing withdrawal.

***

Time passes. Husbands walk by. One makes complaints about the whereabouts of thumbdrives. I am mocked for not lifting up enough papers when, lo and behold, papers are lifted, and a thumbdrive appears.

Oy.

Still, beats a tragedy.

Comments

[mrgeddylee.livejournal.com]

If you'd asked, I'd have been happy to loan you a big ol' USB drive for a week or two.

OpenOffice is pretty good these days.

Just sayin'.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

OpenOffice is pretty NOT good for me, these days. I tried it for about two months before tearing my hair out. The biggest problem was that it liked to strip and/or hide my page numbers while switching to RTF format, which made me look quite stupid to my new agent at one point. Other little things like that, which I don't fully recall, but which were anguish-worthy. So, no OpenOffice, and a little bit with prejudice--not while the known publishing world runs on Word.

[redmomoko.livejournal.com]

I was going to say to try the floor under the bookcase for the thumbdrive- what with kittehs and skittering and gravity and all.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I checked there! :)

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest that you go to your porch or wherever you keep your shoes and check inside a shoe you haven't worn in months. That is where I found my car keys.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Scarily, I did that too.

[alexandralynch.livejournal.com]

An oft repeated story when I was growing up was of my mother's contact lens. She wore hard lenses, which bounce when dropped, as opposed to the soft ones which tend to just suction-cup and stick, IME. She fetched my father in panic, as she Could Not Find Her Lens, and needed his 20/20 vision and flashlight. He was not being very serious about the whole thing, and was waving the flashlight around rather randomly, and watching her get more and more annoyed, only to swing the light around, and hold it steady on...the lens.

Apparently I come by my tendencies to laugh in a crisis genetically. (wry grin)

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

I blame it on the spontaneous generation of thumbdrives in stacks of paper.

[dannimal.livejournal.com]

You would be correct, sir! Not that she'll follow up on this and point out we were right in suggesting it was on her desk, buried. No, she will only huddle warmly in her scoffing insistence that she "already looked there". Possibly that I put it there to make her look bad.

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Well, certainly, since she looked there before, obviously someone placed it there after she had looked all in an effort to discredit her observation.

Or, you know, you could swipe the DVD of "Gaslight" out of the general movie collection so she doesn't find reinforcement through the media.

[mykkel.livejournal.com]

In case you didn't know, Ann Arbor will waive one U of M parking lot ticket a year, with proof of a valid parking tag.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Is this something you've done in the last 2-3 years? Because I could not figure out how to appeal the sucker the last time this happened. I just had this argument with Dann last night...

[mykkel.livejournal.com]

I did it last year. I called the number on the back, and once I talked to a person they told me the steps. I think I had to go to an office and show a guy my permit.

It looks like it might be easier now, this website should help:

http://www2.a2gov.org/onlineforms/ParkingTktcontestform.asp

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

It IS much easier. Thanks!!