Is the deal OFF The Table, or ON the table?
Such a question might be asked of Farmer H, but I can guarandarntee you that the answer will be unsatisfactory.
Last Monday, I was prepping a late lunch to take down to my lair. Farmer H was in the Mansion, due to inclement weather preventing him from hanging out up at his Storage Unit Store. He was planning to leave for the auction. It's an early one, farther away, and he normally leaves by 4:00 to get a good seat, and peruse the wares.
I had plugged in HIPPIE to charge. I don't like to leave him unattended while connected. TWICE, The Pony had his battery cord start smoking and sparking while he was plugged in. That's on the original cord, and the replacement! Lucky for us, we were right there when it happened, and he immediately disconnected. It's not like I unplug lamps and major appliances when I go to bed or drive to town. But a laptop, yes! No fires on MY watch!
"When you leave for the auction, will you unplug my laptop? Just pull that plug out of the side, and lay it on the table."
It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. It's not splitting the atom. Farmer H has seen me plug or unplug HIPPIE a million times. HIPPIE sits on the wooden TV tray at the living room picture window. I sometimes sit my ample rumpus on the coffee table's end while computing. HIPPIE's wireless mouse, and his battery, lie on the table when unplugged.
As I made this request, Farmer H was kicked back in the La-Z-Boy, slack-jawed, watching Charles Ingalls and Mr. Edwards hauling jars of nitroglycerin packed in wooden crates of straw across not-quite-roads in a buckboard.
"I don't know why I bother. You're not even listening to me!"
"I heard you. Unplug your laptop when I leave."
"Just pull out the plug and lay it on the table."
Silence.
I went on about my business, leaving Farmer H in his stupor. I was surprised to hear him stumping about on footless ankles a mere 15 minutes later. I'd thought HIPPIE would get an hour of charging, not 15 minutes.
Anyhoo...when I went upstairs later, I glanced at HIPPIE to make sure he'd been unplugged. Yes. Farmer H had dutifully disconnected the power supply. And LAID IT ON THE EDGE OF THE TV TRAY! All squished up against the edge of HIPPIE so it wouldn't fall off. Not that such a position hurt anything. Merely illustrating my point that Farmer H must be told many times how to do a simple task, and then still does not do it correctly.
He's either a bloomin' idiot, or gaslighting me into craziness.
6 comments:
They do it incorrectly, or they do a mediocre job of it, so we won't ask them to do it anymore.
Sioux,
That would make them evil geniuses. Which is only half right!
I wonder if maybe you should have asked him first what time he was leaving, then you'd know beforehand that Hippie was only going to get a short charge.
I've never heard of cords smoking and sparking before. My daughter and I both have laptops and they are left plugged in almost always. I unplugged mine yesterday just to see how long I could use it before the battery ran down. Almost five hours. But when on battery, the screen is dimmer and my eyes don't like that.
River,
He always leaves at the same time. 4:00 on Mondays, 6:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. I have no idea why he changed his routine, other than to MESS WITH MY MIND!
That rectangular brick-shaped thingy on my charger gets really hot while charging. I don't trust it. HIPPIE works fine on battery until he gets to 30% power left. Then he gets a little dimmer. I think I get less than 5 hours. I must not be in power saver mode. I can go three days without charging, on my regular morning usage. Most of my computing is done on my desktop, New Delly, later in the day (and night).
My brick shaped thingy on the charger cord sits down on my floor, so I just crawled under the table to feel it. It's barely even warm. My screen dims as soon as I unplug the cord from the side of the laptop. There must be a way to brighten it but I haven't bothered to find out how. Last time I tried something I had to text back and forth with my daughter who has your name to get back to normal again.
River,
You're probably in some kind of "saver" mode, but DON'T FIDDLE WITH ANYTHING! I think I can change mine by clicking on the battery icon in the lower right, but I'm certainly not going to futz around with a working laptop!
You might have a better quality charger cord. I had trouble finding a replacement for The Pony's model on Amazon. They were all made in or shipped from China. So I took him to a fairly local computer store, and they sold him a universal charger. Of course, the first replacement burned up as well...
On his newest laptop, a prong thingy from some cord broke off in the hole. He got it out, and that computer store gave him a set of universal prong adapter thingies for FREE. They have since gone out of business. I hope The Pony didn't have anything to do with it...
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