MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES ARE BACK

I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  I have a certain feeling of betrayal that seems to be haunting me.

Fortunately it is not from anybody (or any dog) but from my technology.  I will admit I am not only not very adept with technology but I also do not treat it very well.  But the whole techno-world seems to be venting itself against me lately.  As a matter of fact the paper that this cartoon is so crudely drawn on comes from a copier incident in which I sent a long document to the copier from my office and it printed it as gibberish about seventy five times - so there should be comics coming for a while.

My computer is has been acting up.  Poor thing.  I should be understanding more though.  If it were a person it would be reaching the age of reason.  Unfortunately computers age more quickly than even dogs.

Another piece of machinery that has betrayed me lately is our dish washer.  A dish washer is not just a dish washer, it is a keeper of the peace.  I found that out in spades coming home from a vacation and finding out that our dish washer was broken.

Now I would think that an "OUT OF ORDER" sign on such a machine would cause (certain) people to understand that that means one must wash one's own glasses and dishes.  Nay, nay.  It means that certain people start stacking their dishes on the counter.  So I put up a sign.

Soon I discovered that two signs were not enough.  So I put up a third.  "That will teach them!" I thought.

Nay, nay.  At least I hid my dirty dishes in my room until the dang thing was fixed.  Two trying weeks went by and the dish washer repair man (not as lonely, it turns out, as the commercial pretends) finally got around to restoring peace and harmony to the rectory.  Now everybody is happy and we get along much better.

Which brings me to the latest act of betrayal by machinery.  This is by AOL.  Now, I've always been relatively happy with AOL until this past week.  After years of having little problems with it, turning on my computer and having my mail pop right up, this past week this came up instead:

Now you would think this would be easy enough.  In fact, my code did come up also as those little black circles that you see.  But when I pressed enter this came up:

"How can that be?" I asked myself.  So then I tried to remember the code (that I hadn't had to remember in about four years.  I actually remembered the digits in it but (apparently) not the correct order.  So I made a long list and rearranged the digits in every combination I could conger but no luck.  "Is God angry with me?" I mused.

"Use the name and question option" you might say to yourself.  Nay, nay!  This account was set up for me years ago.  In fact, at the time, one still PAID to be on AOL!  The person who set it up for me, God rest his soul, is no longer around for me to ask even if he should remember!  I am SO distraught.