Monday, August 6, 2007

A Big Dose of Stupid

I should start at the beginning, because I'm only going to tell this story on myself one time. Today the kidlets and I left the house in a flurry of activity, because we were hot-footin' it to get to town on time to meet my new 'book keeper', a woman who gave up her Sunday with her family to come show me the ropes of not only Quickbooks, but also Quickbooks point-of-sale, which, if you've been paying attention to the shrillness of my typing, you know how cooperative "Vista" has been. Yes it's so easy a child can do it, if said child were spawned by superior, Mensa-minds. I have watched friends new and old, near and dear be brought to the brink of madness trying to corral this evil operating, er, interruption system... so I brought in some professional help.

Anyway, it seemed I hadn't done the 'grunt work' of inputting all the inventory, and that is where we had to start. For nine hours and 48 minutes, we counted, labeled, and input countless items. My brain shorted out, then Patsy's went out, too. We packed up and left together, into the dark Indiana night. I knew I wanted to at least get the Louet input on my own, more as a test of mettle than anything else, so I packed up the laptop, BOTH halves of the power cord, and the two handbags, the cooler, and, I thought the file box... you know, the plastic brain where I keep all the invoices, account information, my business checks... just, as I mentioned, *everything*.

It was a long day, and a longer night, and suddenly I found myself in the throes of a panic attack. Bill had wanted to see what I'd 'learned' from my afternoon/evening with a professional Quickbooks Advisor. So, I thought I'd show off a little and put my inventory of lovely Canadian yarn into place... but where had I set the file box? Funny... I didn't even remember taking it out of the car. Hmmm... I also didn't remember putting it into the car. Oh, this was just craptastic. I tried to tell myself there was no way I'd forget a file box sitting next to the jeep. But it was dark. I was tired. It had to still be inside the building, right? I took a whole mg. of xanax and tried to go to bed.

Crushing chest pain. Heart racing till I feel faint, dizzy, and very nauseous. What to do? Then it dawned on me... call the Franklin police. Yep. Nothing like having to broadcast loud and clear what kind of an idiot is coming to town to hang out her knittin' an' quiltin' shingle. I called. When the dispatcher asked me for my name, I told her, then I spelled it out for her... S-t-u-p-i-d Becher. Seriously. She laughed. And less than ten minutes later, at 12:38 a.m., a nice sounding policeman called me back to say they found nary a trace of the file box. Not that it helps. I just can narrow it down tomorrow (sock camp at two p.m.... come if you're interested, to the shop, not clear out here) when I'm in town. Either I did in fact leave the box inside, or it was an easy mark for someone, out prowling around town ten-ish at night, in the burg.

Two things I know for an absolute certainty. Vista is possibly the damnedest o.s. ever, and I have waaaaay too much fiber goodness in my shop. And there is a whole lot more on order... and I'm running outta storage options. Time to call in more reinforcements... but first sleep. Then sock camp. (Four whole students. They's better just show up I tell ya.) Night all you knittas. Cami

6 comments:

Crazy For Yarn In Alabama said...

Don't be so hard on yourself! Sounds like you have an ENORMOUS amount of pressure on you right now!! And too much yarn??? NEVER!! Wish I lived close enough to shop with you!!

Unknown said...

Well I didn't have to call the police but my second monkey sock is smaller than the first and while I can get it on my foot, I then have absolutely no circulation!!!! Hope you have a much better Monday - sock camp yea! g

yzarc_irab said...

Wow! There's never a dull moment (or blog entry) with you in the world. I really hope the file box/plastic brain shows up, as well as the sock camp knitters. Hang in there, Cami. Some day (or night) in the not-so-distant future, you will find yourself sitting in your well-stocked and inventoried shop, actually KNITTING with a group of wonderful, personable Knitters (note the capital K!) and you will think, "I MADE IT!" Hold that thought.

Dragonfly7673 (Vicki) said...

I hope you find the files when you go back in. Sounds similar to how I felt with my keys during vacation.

If I was registered for sock camp, no way would I miss it!!

Stephanie said...

Oh man. I really really really hope that your file box was still in there and that you didn't leave it on the curb. I do that kind of stuff all the time. DOH! But everything always turns up and I usually panicked for hours about nothing. So...I hope the same applies here. Sock camp sounds like fun! I wish I were a local!!! I would SO be there!

Annalea said...

Oh, Cami. What a horrible thing to have to worry about!

There's one thing I can offer as help, though. Go spend the $99 and make the Vista problem GO AWAY by buying an "upgrade" copy of XP Home. Personally, I would go spend $200 for the XP Professional upgrade. (You've got Vista, so you should be able to "upgrade" to XP.) I'd like to seriously strangle Microsoft for releasing Vista. It's a nightmare, and XP has just now gotten to be a really good, rock solid, option.

You could also call the place you bought the computer, tell them that they did you a serious disservice by selling you a computer with Vista on it, that it's not working, the drivers are flaky, and that you insist on them replacing it with XP because you need something actually reliable for your business. (Be sure that you have Boris/someone techy help with a full backup of your inventory, etc., first. The least they can do is sell you an XP Pro upgrade for $100.)

I wish I could have known beforehand so I could have helped you avoid Vista in the first place! With Vern being dependent on Microsoft OS's (the stuff he writes runs on Windows), we had to do the research and decide whether or not to upgrade to Vista when it came out. Big. Fat. No. Way. Jose. He's not even going to support running his software on Vista for at least a year or two. That's how bad it is. I'm so sorry you got mixed up in it!

Best of luck . . . with the computer, sock camp, and with finding your filebox!