Episode II of Fortuna Kendrae (Kendra's Luck)

So, my mom got home a couple of weeks ago from her trip to Florida. She travels sometimes because of her position in Classical Conversations. Well, she had a lot of work that had accumulated over her week-long trip. The next day, she wanted to get right down to business.

That would have been much easier if her computer would turn on.

She pressed the "on" button of her laptop, and the cheerful Windows screen appeared along with the spinning mouse-arrow that's computer code for "Please-Hold-Oh-Impatient-One-Or-I-Will-Freeze-Up-For-Twenty-Minutes". Her computer's fairly new and fast, so that screen usually lasts all of seven seconds anyway. Not the case this time.

That cheerful Windows screen and Hold-On arrow continued to stare at her for minutes on end. Needless to say, ten minutes later, the screen was no longer cheerful, and neither was my mother.

She called in my dad, the family's Computer Superman (although he's not *especially* tech-savvy). I'm not really sure what they thought was wrong, but they tried all morning to get it to fix itself.

That afternoon, they moved on to looking for the computer's programming disk or something. I honestly have no idea. I think my dad explained to me why they were looking for it, but I can't remember. Maybe you geeks--I mean, computer lovers (XD just kidding) will know what the heck I'm talking about.

My dad looked ALL OVER THE HOUSE for that disk. We're a really organized family, so whenever we can't find something, it's a big deal. Major tension. My dad looked all in his and my mom's office, all upstairs, in the cabinets behind my Mom's Chair, in the unfinished part of the basement (a VERY large area), these drawers under this thing ('cause you totally know what I'm talking about there), EVERYWHERE. That stupid disk couldn't be found.

So they moved on to another solution. Don't remember what it was, but it was some kind of installment thing or something that took forEVER. It took about another whole day (so we're been trying to fix this stupid machine for two days), and the stupid thing still didn't work after that.

This lady from our church who's apparently computer-talented looked over the problem and didn't know what to do. So we called in our last resort:

COMPUTER GUY EXTRAORDINAIRE! From church. Very nice guy, very good with computers. He agreed to come the next day. So, it's now been THREE days of Tech Hell.

I wandered into my mom's office that night. She was leaning on her desk, just looking so depressed. I felt so bad for her. I went over and massaged her back a little. I sat down at her desk and glared at the stupid machine who was wreaking havoc on our family dynamic. The Windows screen was up and the arrow was spinning obliviously. Evil little creature.

Then I got this Feeling.

I sometimes get this Feeling. It's really hard to describe. It's like this happy, curious, confident, contented feeling. Like everything's all good, let me just try one thing...I usually get this feeling right before I do something weird. Good weird. Really unexpectedly-good-weird.

I cocked my head at my mom's computer, arrow still spinning. I got the Feeling and poked Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

Nothing happened. I honestly didn't expect it to. My subconscious seemed to only have tried that for kicks. All the sudden I pressed F5 (refresh).

The Windows screened cleared immediately, revealing Momma's account.

I looked up at her innocently: "I think I fixed your computer, Momma."

She looked. Eyes bugged. Jaw dropped. Whoa.

F5. Who woulda thought? Not Momma. Not Daddy. Not Computer Lady. Not Techie Man.

Not even me. I just did it. Didn't mean to; didn't think about it.

The computer is still running smoothly. Ta-da. Thank you, thank you very much.

And this has been another episode of...

FORTUNA KENDRAE!


P.S. Going to see "A Christmas Carol" in 3D tonight! I'll let you know if it sucks or not XD