Laptop Lapse

Every fortnight Haymarket Rapper (i.e. aged Kingsmen) get together on Zoom to check they are all still alive, discuss past exploits, share old photos, sometimes have a little quiz and plan future get-togethers, when this present unpleasantness allows.   

Haymarket owes its origins to Fester realising at his brother’s funeral that his old friends and acquaintances needed to find better ways of getting together than someone’s death.  As normal he now delegates organising things to someone else, for once not me.   

A couple of times a year they meet up in a designated town for a weekend of visiting pubs for dancing and drinking (not necessarily in that order).  As this has had to stop, for the past year or so the Micromanagement has organised Zoom links and reminders.

Of course there was no way Fester was going to take part in Zoom meetings.  

Oh no!  I could be sociable if I wished but he would just carry on with his list of pits.

Our office is the box-room over the stairs with a work-surface fitted to two and a bit walls (the door takes up the rest of the room).  Fester sits facing the window reading from his laptop and inputting onto his desktop pc.  The laptop was liberated from the University when he retired some years ago, but he has “spent money on it getting a new hard drive put in.”  I sit at right angles to him using the ‘main’ computer, which has the webcam and microphone (which is another saga).  So viewers see a sort of two headed monster:  me facing them and him in profile.

Once a meeting starts he, naturally, cannot contain himself from commenting.   

I frequently mute just so everyone else can hear themselves think.   

He also keeps popping up and down to fetch maps from the top shelves and, as he never has his shirt buttoned, viewers are treated to unwelcome flashes of his naked belly; like some vast hairy full moon.

Our image is frequently enlivened by the appearance of Thunderthighs on his way to or from the bath, cats' tails and once Felix’s head Batman like in the bottom of the screen.  We are regularly distracted as a cat walks across the back of Fester’s laptop and we wonder which F key (both meanings) it’s going to step on.

At the most recent Haymarket Zoom Felix jumped up onto the desk, his tail passed across the camera, he walked along the back of the laptop missing all the keys and finally settled down and curled up next to the cooling fan vent where it’s nice and warm.  The laptop ceased to function.  Fester assumed it had overheated and removed it from beside the somewhat miffed cat.  He tried to restart it several times but only succeeded once and then it immediately closed down again.

Despite (because of?) the distraction we had an enjoyable meeting and agreed to do it all over again in a fortnight.  

Then it was “Are Monkseaton Computers open tomorrow? … What time do they open? … Can you email them?”

These were the emails

Fester’s laptop

25/5/2021 21:14

To Monkseaton Computers

Hi

Fester's laptop has ceased to function so he'd like to bring it down today/this morning (Wednesday) to see whether you might be able to bring it back to life, or at least get the data off.

Please phone our landline if it's not convenient.

Cheers

Ben

ps He can pay for our bullguard while he's there

 

 

Ignore my previous email

25/5/2021 21:50

To Monkseaton Computers

According to Fester "The cat has pulled out the power supply and shoved it down the back of the radiator so the computer was complaining about having no power"

It's never ending fun in this house !

Kind regards

Ben

 

The laptop is now properly plugged in and functioning as well as ever, cats permitting.