The Broken Keyboard Again

A couple months ago we were having a post yard sale, post shed building cookout with some very helpful friends.  Gosh, that totally sounded like Sir Topham Hat from Thomas the Tank Engine. Anyways, Betsy was the one to find the wounded, keyless laptop.  The shriek echoed up the stairs as I dropped what I was doing and booked it down the stairs.  I threw myself on the floor in search of it's lost limbs, scooping up a K here and a N there.  The men, hearing our moaning and wailing, come barrelling down the stairs to find us weeping for the poor, lost keyboard. 

Okay, maybe I'm over dramatizing the event.  It went down more like this.  "Hey Hills, I think you might want to see this," said Betsy from the bottom of the stairs.  After seeing the atrocity that used to be my laptop, the only thing left to say was, "OOOOOOOOWWEEEENNNNN & BBBBBLLLLLAAAKKKKEEE, Get your behinds downstairs right this second."

To my astonishment, Owen worked as a lone plucker.  Blake was released while Owen faced his sentencing.  He had to sit in time out while Paul & Allen attempted to rekey the board.  In typical male fashion, they refused to look at a qwerty keyboard.  Except for a few switched keys, the boys were able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, and I had a mostly functioning laptop.

Fast forward to last week, Allison and Alicia are over for entirely different reasons.  Welcome to Grand Central Station.  You know I love the hustle and bustle.  So we're in Alicia's room eying some "genius" wall painting by my very clever and mischievous 4 year old. Then I walk out for some reason or another to find, once again, a keyless laptop.  This time, the culprit, one small-in-stature yet big-on-destruction 3 yr old.  However you wouldn't know it by how calm, cool,and collective he was just sitting there watching whatever was on the TV.  He's coy, I'll give you that, but seeing how Owen was already in time out and Madison was sleeping; there was really no other option.  This time it was Allison, Alicia and I trying to replace the keys.  This time we used another Qwerty keyboard as our guide. We were able to switch back the keys previously reversed, but now instead of 4 permanently missing keys, I now had 10.  Add to that the fact that most keys required a hard press or two before it would type, I realized that I could no longer function with a broken keyboard. 

So I called Acer, who politely told me that they would be happy to replace the keyboard.  Oh yay, really?  Yep, for $199.  What?  The computer isn't even worth that.  Can't you just sell me a keyboard and  I can do it myself?  Nope, I'm guessing they don't trust the end user with a few screws and a plug. 

Then someone said to me, "Hillary,why don't you just go on Ebay and order a new keyboard?" Oh my, the could the solution really be that simple?  Sure enough, I found pages and pages of brand new Acer 5517 keyboards just waiting for me to buy one. A click here, a little Paypal there and voila!  Now all I have to do is wait a few more days, and it won't take me 4 hours to type a paragraph.

All of that, though completely 100% true, was also a little bit of a metaphor for how I feel in my life right now, like a broken keyboard.  I can't go into all the details, but let's just say I could use some prayer.  I'm pretty sure that there isn't as easy a solution (especially since I can't buy a new me), but I would like to be fully restored, no matter how painful the process is.  Functioning right now is a bit like working with the flawed and damaged keyboard.  It probably doesn't help that I feel far from God right now as well.  Okay, it doesn't help at all.  In fact, it's probably what has gotten me here in the first place.  Regardless, if you're a praying person, please do so for me and my family.