Murphy Strikes Again!

June 28, 2010 by Melody J Haislip 6 Comments

Things had been pretty quiet on the Murphy front lately. Nothing but the usual “gotcha” moments in the wee hours of the night, or the occasional  clammy, cold, foot-length hairball, waiting beside the bed in the morning.

When I tried to encourage him to do something “cute”, so I could write about it, he would give me one of his patronizing looks and then stare off nobly into the distance. So I was completely unprepared for his latest attack. Other people have computer viruses, I have Murphy. I’d been watching a film on Netflix and had put the keyboard down within Murphy’s reach, just for a moment, but he saw his chance and took it. He did one of his drop-and-roll maneuvers across the keyboard, at the same time grabbing the mouse in his razor-claw-tipped paws. As we struggled for possession of the mouse, he squirmed and rolled all over the keyboard. By the time I had wrested control back into my opposable-thumbed-hands, the damage was done.

I use my 32 inch, high def TV screen as my computer monitor, and when I looked at it, I saw that everything was now on its head. Apparently this affected the mouse as well, because the only way I could get it to work was to back up to the TV, bend from the waist and run the mouse up and down my leg to maneuver it. This position was difficult to maintain, since the blood started running to my head, and the mouse was working only at about half capacity.

Finally I gave up and went to bed, hoping when I booted up in the morning that the situation would have corrected itself. No such luck. I called everyone I knew and no one had even heard of this happening until my younger sister called Geek Squad and described what was going on. Miracle of miracles, they had the solution which she passed on to me. All it took was pressing CTRL + ALT + the down arrow, all at the same time. It took several tries, but at last the images on the screen returned to their normal position. I was even able to track down my bookmarks, which had mysteriously vanished.

Murphy and I are in counseling, and things are getting back to normal, but I’ve learned my lesson. No more encouraging my computer kitty to show off again! (That’s Murphy in the foreground, with brother Max behind him. )