Of Mice and Men--and Computers

Well, I stopped in at Best Buy yesterday to have one of the Geek Squad members look at my misbehaving laptop--and I couldn't believe it when I found out what was the cause of all the headaches it's been giving me for the past few days.  It was so simple, really.  The culprit was not some raging computer virus or anything that dramatic and tough to fix; it was the MOUSE!

Maybe my husband and I should have figured it out on our own, since the problem was that whenever I tried to scroll down any kind of list of items (say, the list of "Favorites" saved on my Internet Explorer page, or my incoming e-mails, or my photos), the entire list would just rush like crazy to the bottom of the page of its own accord and not allow me to click the cursor arrow on any one item.  (I don't know if I'm explaining the problem all that clearly, but just suffice it to say that it was very annoying!  And it made even the simple task of checking e-mails pretty much impossible!)

I ALWAYS use a mouse, because I'm hopeless at using that little tool bar thingy in front of the computer keyboard.  It never even occurred to me to bite the bullet and try to scroll down a list without using the mouse to see if that would work.  I don't know why neither my husband nor I suspected the mouse.  (You sneaky mouse!)

Hmmm, now that I think of it, I did drop my old mouse at the hotel over the weekend.  It bounced rather violently a few times, and then the battery storage cover popped off...and coincidentally, shortly afterward I noticed that I was experiencing serious technical difficulties.   But I had given that mouse-dropping incident very little thought until the Geek Squad guy told me the mouse was to blame.

Oh well...the good news is that I didn't have to pay the helpful gentleman who diagnosed my laptop's illness a dime for his help.  My trip to Best Buy only cost me $17.99, for a new and improved mouse.  My new right-hand man (is it a man, or is it a mouse?) is sleek and pretty--black accented with bright royal blue--and I can already tell that it works better than my old one ever did, even before that squat and ugly--black accented with dingy gray--mouse decided to go haywire on me.

The moral of the story is this: sometimes when you think you've got big problems, they turn out to be very little ones.  Little, itty-bitty, mousie-sized ones.