Confessions of a Mad Housewife

Posted By ê¿ê on December 30th, 2007

I must confess, dear readers, that I am not always the smart, logical person I appear to be on this blog. As humbling as it is, I am human and therefore subject to all the foibles that condition carries with it. Here is my confession…

As you may know (having read earlier posts in this tome), I traveled to the far reaches of Alabama this week with my trusty (and brand spanking new) laptop. I also brought my camera as I intended to take photos of my destination.

Well, I was in the midst of my post about the LaQuinta when I had the flash of brilliance that you dear readers might like to see some photos to punctuate my post (have you noted yet that there are no photos on the post???), so I brought out my trusty Sony and recorded those items of interest in my room. Not having the USB connection with me, and noticing a port on the front of the laptop that I identified (right or wrong is still to be determined) as a video card port, I popped my card out of the camera and inserted it into said port.

Well, it was apparent from the get-go that the port was wider than my card and after a cerebral palsy-like twitch on my part, MUCH deeper as well.

Panic sets in at this point as I fear for both my card AND my shiny new laptop!

I did have presence of mind to power it off before trying to remove the card with appliances.

What appliances you might ask?

I don’t travel with a kit of tools with me, however, being female, I have a few makeshift ones in my arsenal.

I found a paperclip which unfolded to become a probe. Using said paperclip-probe, I delicately inserted it into the port and tried to hook it around the end of the card. That only succeeded in driving the card even deeper and worse, dislodging some pin in the port that is now effectively trapping the card deep within it’s bowels.

I put the laptop away for the time being as I am out of ideas and appliances, but when I get home from my trip the next day, I go in search of other appliances. I find a set of hemostats that I think might work - nope, too thick. No pliers with thin enough and long enough jaws, so tomorrow, when the stores open, I will go in search of tweezers with long pointy ends. I know such exist as I used to have some many moons ago.

Meanwhile, my camera is unused, and my laptop languishes and I feel beaten by fate.

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UPDATE — I was able to remove (finally!) the errant card using a dental pick and have now safely reinstalled it in the camera, downloaded the photos and put them where I originally wanted them.

All is right with my world — well, except the port on the front of the laptop is in less than perfect condition now… A small price to pay for my clumsy stupidity.