Four weeks ago to this day, I left my laptop open outside, overnight, and there was a rainstorm. Pro tip: don’t leave your laptop open, outside, overnight, in a rainstorm. It doesn’t like to turn on when wet.

Lucky for me, my external hard drive had failed a few months prior, and I brought it to see if the tech people could fix it. I purchased the insurance to save myself some bucks. They could NOT fix it. I bought another external hard drive, questioning that logic since if the first one crapped out, what would make the second one not crap out? I did not have an answer, but I did buy another one.

Per usual, I had jotted down, “cancel insurance” on one of my many ongoing to-do lists. Per usual, I had not gotten to said item on to do list. When I walked my soggy computer into the repair shop, the tech dude said, “You’re in luck! You’re covered by insurance!”

“I AM DUMBFOUNDED!” I said those words. Does anyone really ever say “dumbfounded?” I did. Dumbfounded that my lack of action paid off in the long run because they could repair my computer for free-ish!

They got it repaired and fixed up! It just took twelve. Really. Long. Days.  Twelve days of me trying to run a business on a 2014 MacBook Air powered by one geriatric hamster. I could pretty much have one tab open, or it would scream OUCH, YOU’RE HURTING ME and the average load time for any sort of anything was at least 30 seconds. I dare you to try to open a new tab and count to 30 imagining it wouldn’t open until then and not go insane.

Except there was no time to go insane. I had too much to do. Meetings. Events. Travel. I had to stay in the zone.

The zone was not done with me.

There were things like having to order business cards for the event (who even uses business cards anymore?) because I realized my number had changed and hence needed new ones and had to pay super extra for speedy shipping. Then getting the notice the night before the event that they wouldn’t arrive until I was on my way to said event. Therefore grabbing the MacBook Hamster and uploaded graphics to FedEx (fun!), only to be at FedEx the next day picking up the cards and receiving then notification the other cards HAD arrived.

Then walking into my hotel room, late, because of course, I had to complete my royal grill and get two crowns at the dentist earlier that afternoon. Numb and tired and ready to hit the hay I walked in to a decidedly non-hay-like aroma. It was more like Eu De Wet Dog Wrapped Up In Sweaty Smelly Teenage Used Sweatsocks. It was pretty gross, not gonna lie.

I needed to shower, although with that stink, it seemed counterintuitive. I showered. I hit the pillow. The next morning, I woke up and ran my fingers through my hair, thinking, what sort of magical, miracle-working nectar from the shampoo gods is in those wall-mounted hotel shampoo pumps? My hair had never been so smooth, so soft, so deliciously fragrant! It looked fresh from the salon!

It was finally getting my computer back then the multiple warnings of no disk space and incorrectly formatted external hard drives and decided to use a new web browser so no passwords were saved but not actually taking a moment to learn how to use the web browser because there was so much to do and I just had to stay. In. The. Zone.

Tuesday passed by, and I surrendered to the fact my two sets of Tuesday Tips for clients were not getting sent. Thursday passed by and well, you all did not receive your favorite newsletter of the week because it was too much else.

Everything took a long time. Everything seemed to be a domino of clusters. Everything seemed really hard. Everything stunk. Literally and figuratively.

And yet…

Thank goodness for that insurance.

Smart thinking getting that external hard drive, since I then had a backup for my newly restored computer!

That shampoo, for real.