I wanted to murder my cat.
I usually love him.
But not yesterday.
Yesterday, the demonic creature that I share my room with decided it would be nice to knock over the glass of water I left on my windowsill…
Onto my BRAND. NEW. MacBook Air.
I was livid, to say the least.
My computer’s now being soaked in rice.
It’ll stay like that for a week.
And still, I’m pretty sure it’s fried.
So after a morning of pretty much cursing my cat’s existence, I later realized that it’s not worth being SO upset over.
Yes, it’s terrible. That thing cost me a fortune. But still, I’m pretty sure that monthly Botox injections to fix my frown lines are far more expensive than the replacement of said computer.
What I learned from this whole situation is the following:
It’s so easy to get upset about things!
God knows, if I got upset about every freaking failure I’ve ever had…from tripping over myself while standing in place to walking into a glass door…well, I’d be pissed off every day of my life because, well, I do stuff like that ALOT.
And you know what?
At work, you’re going to make mistakes too.
But you have a choice…
Either go crazy and flip out and cry
OR
Be a normal human being and process the situation.
You know that saying… “It’s not worth crying over spilt milk”…
Well, in my case, it’s not worth crying over spilt water all over my beautiful brand new computer.
It happened already.
It’s in the past.
I can’t change it (although I totally wish I could).
But what CAN I do?
Learn from it.
Note to Kayla:
DON’T EVER LEAVE WATER IN YOUR ROOM OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOUR CAT CAN USE TO DESTROY STUFF THAT YOU REALLY LIKE.
But really, no matter how much of a perfectionist you are, sh*t’s going to happen.
I promise.
So do your best to fix it. Do everything you can to make it better.
But after that, it’s done. It’s over.
Learn, move on, and in my case, don’t eat lunch for three months to save up money for a new computer.
Somehow, I’ll try to be nice to my cat again.
Great, pragmatic advice!
Man, I feel your pain
Seriously, is that a smug little smile on your cat’s face?
This is one of the reasons why I now use tumbler cups at home.1. my kitty does not spill my drink and 2. she won’t drink out of it. I love my kitty, but I don’t want kitty saliva in my drink.
Kayla, I loved the post, please keep it somewhere handy to remember when you have children.
A great lesson learned.
If you have homeowner’s/renter’s insurance (or are covered by your parents’) and there’s a low-ish deductible, it might be something to consider looking into…my dad told me that the deductible was like $500 which made sense try to replace a $2000 laptop back when I had a similar incident (except replace “cat” with “mom”).
I wish my middle child had that attitude, but sadly the past seems to haunt her.
I love your sense of humor !
hi – fun read!!! too bad about the computer though. An alternate summary of your story comes to mind as I read through your piece: Never make the same mistake twice… cat? water? windowsill? computer? ugghhhh… gl with the rice.
Botox in your 20′s? Really? Maybe stop frowning so much
It’s not quite the same as a computer, but my cat recently broke a vase a now dearly-departed friend of mine gave me. After days of seething and being angry at her, I finally decided to turn the pieces into stepping stones for my and my friends’ gardens. I hope the rice fixes your computer!
So true. I managed to spill some water on my laptop today all by myself, I don’t even need help from outside sources to suffer such failures!
Great advice – though it still sucks for your computer. No warranty stuff to help with that?
Though I bet you’ll be surprised and your computer will be fine – electronics seem to be able to take SUCH a beating sometimes!
You are so far from being a failure… but maybe the lesson is don’t have water anywhere near an expensive cumputer
and yes, I think the poor cat does have a smug smile!!
Ooooh, that’s unfortunate…but your cat’s so cute! How could you possibly stay mad at him for long?
I wish I could say that I’m good at letting things go…sometimes I’m better than others. Sometimes I just want to dwell and be angry. Other times I’m just like, “Oh well!” I’m working on having more *shrug* moments.
Oooooh my goodness, I would be a wreck. I’ve wanted to murder my cat before, but not like that. I think I might actually really murder my cat if this happened.
I’m sure I’d regret it. Eventually.
No use being down a computer AND a cat.
I feel ya! Nice recovery. Very cerebral, logical, mature, wise.
I’m so sorry to hear about this accident. Yes, many of us learn the hard way that feline mischief exceeds what we’re shown on cute kitty websites… sometimes they’re downright evil. But still freakishly cute. Damn it.
I accidentally washed my girlfriend’s iPod and $150 headphones with her clothes a few weeks ago. I put them in some orzo (we didn’t have rice) for a few days. They have functioned as normally ever since. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you. Don’t suppose the warranty covers crazy cat antics?
Nice post ! A really good advice: do not let any glass (empty or not) near a computer where cats, childs, drunk people, dancing people, … are ! I keep this rule for my iMac and my music stuff… and everything is still alive.