The Story about the Milk

[First published June 22, 2010]
So here's what happened. There I am, happily living, and I spill an entire glass of milk on the computer keyboard. Well, it wasn't the entire glass. Some of it spilled on me.

This was a major spill. First time in 22 years of computing that I've spilled any liquid on a computer and I made up for lost time.

Alas, the keyboard would type, a bit, but it was gibberish.

I've got an older keyboard and plugged that in. More gibberish. That old keyboard was sitting next to the first one (just as my old blueberry iMac sits next to my Intel Mac), and later I realized that it got the spill too. The only survivor was the wireless Intel Mouse. It also got milked, but dried out, apparently.

Of course, because neither keyboard worked, I thought I'd zapped out something inside the 'puter. But I called the marvelous Mac tech who saved the 'puter a couple of months ago when the hard disc crashed (I got a new 1TB hard disc and an upgrade to Snow Leopard, plus 95% of my data saved for $300). She gave me the name of a Mac consultant who told me to try a mouse on it. If that worked, then I hadn't zapped the 'puter.

The mouse worked, but by this time I'd restarted the 'puter and it was over on the XP side. I couldn't get back to the Mac OS.

So I ordered this nifty little keyboard from Apple for $49, which arrived within 24 hours. It worked! It typed! But the 'puter wouldn't recognize the option key, which is required for it to get back to the Mac OS on a restart.

For those who aren't Maccies: Intel Macs can run both a Mac OS and a Windows OS. It really is like having two computers in one. Under the program "bootcamp," which is a free part of the Mac OS, you can buy your own copy of a Windows OS--in my case it's XP--and load it onto part of your Mac hard disc. Then you just restart the 'puter to get to XP. There I can play XP games. It's where I'm playing Lost Souls, actually. To get back to the Mac OS, you restart from XP, and hold down the "option" key. That brings up a choice of either Mac or XP. You choose Mac, it loads, and you go on your merry way.

But the 'puter wouldn't recognize the option key on the nifty new little keyboard. I figured that my older 'puter needed an older model keyboard. So I made an appointment at the "Genius Bar" in the local Apple store, which has lots of keyboards, for today, Tuesday. My sister came down from L.A. to sit with Dad and I carted the 'puter down there.

Aha! The Apple Genius found another way into the Mac OS! I can keep my nifty new little keyboard. I don't need the option key at all. I can restart into Mac OS directly from XP, and I can restart into XP by going into the Mac prefs and switching the startup disc to XP. Voila!

So it's all good, and it only cost me the $49 bucks (well, $57 with shipping and taxes).

I hope to get back to Lost Souls by the end of the week. I have one more doorstopper book to get through for my Paying Job at Kirkus Reviews.

Would have finished all six books by now and be back to Lost Souls already, but for the milk.