I can write again!
No, I had not lost the use of hand or eye: I had lost the use of my USB mouse.
I was left with the ouija board on the laptop.
Does it transmit calls from the Other Side?
No…but it might as well because every time I touch it strange things arise from nowhere: I am thinking of calling it Glendower as it defies Hotspur’s cynicism and produces the goods…
To be fair to it, my coordination is not of the best: but I am frustrated by thinking that I am scrolling down when in fact I am bringing up advertisements….or altering the screen proportions from something only seen on optician’s test sheets to an intense view of one word. Extremely frustrating and profoundly inhibiting.
How did my predicament come about?
My ancient USB mouse had been confiscated by Higher Authority.
Higher Authority’s approach to computers could best be envisaged by imagining him shouting ‘Montjoie St. Denis!’ while hoisting the oriflamme to indicate that no quarter will be given as he prepares to give combat.
The results frequently resemble those of the French at Agincourt…
Squawks of frustration and alarm are heard from the office. Dogs slink under tables.
An infuriated figure appears, announcing that the screen has turned purple…or that the page he was looking at has disappeared…or that EVERYTHING has disappeared….
He returns to the fray, only to emerge again with the news that his mouse won’t work.
As it is
A: made in China
and
B: its functioning depends on a batch of rechargeable batteries purchased in France in the Dark Ages which in turn rely for boosting on a temperamental machine which refuses to light up to indicate whether or not it is working
this doesn’t surprise me.
The saga of changing and charging batteries takes its course until we run out of charged batteries and the fatal announcement is made:
You’ll have to give me your USB mouse.
Which leaves the household in peace again – odd occurrences of purple screens apart – but leaves me with the ouija board.
Usually this situation lasts only until the batteries are all charged again…but this time it has lasted for all too long. Higher Authority likes my old USB mouse far better than his fiendishly clever Chinese one – easier to hold for paralysed fingers.
Why not buy another?
Because this is Costa Rica where maintaining stock is an art yet to be acquired by shopkeepers.
Discovering a void on the shelf where the item used to be you ask the young assistant if there are any more in the stock room.
Obligingly he will disappear and return to tell you, beaming the while, that they are out of stock, adding helpfully that they must have sold them all..
It says a great deal for the effect on me of the pleasant way of life in Costa Rica in general that this response does not elicit – as it would have done in France – the urge to disembowel the lad without the assistance of cutlery: but then in France he probably wouldn’t have gone to look in the stockroom either…….He might even have shrugged.
So I have had to wait until the inscrutable workings of Providence filled the shelf with the items I required.
The young lad was in attendance again, beaming.
But why did I want a USB mouse he wished to know. They were old fashioned. He understood that old people (me) didn’t keep up to date, but I should really go for a wireless mouse – much better!
I thanked him for his advice, but declined.
Best to let sleeping mice lie.
