Things that go bang in the night

There was a power blackout late at night a couple of days ago. After enduring my usual tossing and turning, while hoping sleep would pop up and bash me into unconsciousness, I was awakened by the sound of an alarm going off, and something, never to be identified, going Beep, Beep, Beep.  I got up and peered around, and noticed that the time showing on the clock radio was an hour behind my watch. Having adjusted the time, I went back to bed.

Before sleep could hit me again, suddenly music began playing. I went downstairs and discovered that the CD player had started, all by its little self. I switched it off and went back to bed.

Some time after that, the room was illuminated from below. Yet again I went downstairs, and found that the computer was re-starting itself, and that the mouse and the computer no longer loved each other, and had abruptly abandoned cohabitation.

By this stage a certain amount of irritation was setting in. I flapped about with the mouse and finally got reconnected, and put the computer back to sleep. The computer was far more willing to go back into Sleep Mode than was my fractious body.

It was not possible to sleep in, as I had to get to my Italian class, and once there I found out that I was not the only person to have suffered from mysterious nocturnal electrical disturbances.

However all seemed well, until an email from the solicitor arrived later that day, and I went to print it out. It was not all good news, as I am being billed monthly, and the shock of the bill was about equivalent to the power surge and/or blackout.  Never mind, I bravely thought, no pain, no gain, and one must just hope for the best.

The printer would not print. Oh Oh! Maybe the power thingy had upset it a trifle. I looked at it more closely. The On switch was not. I pressed it. Then I pressed it again. It remained unilluminated. I checked the power point, and did some jiggling there. The printer is definitely dead. Fortunately I have another printer connected to the old iMac, so at least I can still print from that. It seems rather strange that one printer should go bung, while the other one still works. I dare not complain about this, though.

At some later stage it occurred to me that my contents insurance might possible cover the replacement of the extinct printer. So I telephoned them. Not necessarily, said the insurance. Printers, they said, don't conk out because of a power surge. They are plug-in sort of beasties. (Are they?) What you must do, the insurance said, is ring your energy supplier and ask them What Really Happened that night.

So yet again, I had to grapple with a telephone menu system and select from numerous options until I got an actual person. They will check it for me, they said. It could take ten days or so.

It is probably inadvisable for me to sit around waiting for them to give me any news, which, given the way fate has been bashing me about for quite some time, is not likely to be good. Now is the time for all good whoevers to go out and buy a new printer. Just the sort of thing you want to do after getting Round 2 of the legal bills. Choosing technological things is not my idea of fun. Then there will be yet another manual to misunderstand.

I should not have gone out and bought a new shawl the previous day. Just asking for trouble, wasn't I?

Nor should I indulge in lamentations on the computer. Now motor bikes and scooters are being raced up and down the street, making a very loud noise.