Hi, friends. And Happy Valentine’s Day. Because we’re all about the Lurve around here, I brought out my favorite non-related twin sister to share a moment of hilarity with you. What? You didn’t know that Sarah Eden and I were sisters? Then you may have missed THIS, in which we discuss our similarities, I trip her language sensor, and she draws a Stunning Likeness of me. Sarah, as you may know, writes Regency romances with sass and humor. Also, she has great hair. There’s this other thing about Miss Sarah, and that is that she’s way, way tech savvy. And, as you likely know, I am SO not. I wanted to embed (imbed?) a video that Sarah made, but all I could manage was a link to YouTube. So if you go away to watch it, promise you’ll come back and read the rest of her story. And leave a comment. So you can be entered TO WIN A BOOK! Sarah’s newest, “Friends and Foes” which I own (but you can’t have mine) and have read, laughed through, and very much enjoyed. I’ll send a copy of it to YOU, if you’re our winner. Just leave a comment, and you’re in. Totally. (So long as you get your packages in the US and Canada, you know the drill.) All right. Here she is:
Cheetos Never Prosper: a cautionary tale
Ask any author what they eat while they’re writing and 99.9% of the time they’ll have a very immediate and detailed answer. Some tend toward healthy choices like apple slices and organic carrots. The rest of us think of the pain and torture and effort of writing as a clear indication we “deserve” something that barely counts as food, like twinkies and M&Ms.
My writing food of choice, for many, many years, was Cheetos. I love them with a devotion that just might be a sign of some deeper sickness. I love that they are crunchy and make a snapping sound when you bite into them. The fake cheese taste I find oddly satisfying. Even the constant hint of orange I found on my fingers held a special spot in my heart. Sadly, I discovered within the last couple years that Cheetos and I can no longer be friends: eating even a couple leaves me miserably ill. We gaze longingly at each other when I happen to wander down the snack food aisle at the grocery store. But ours is a star-crossed fate.
Don’t believe I am that devoted to the food-like snack product? I created this very touching video two Valentine’s Days ago. Watch. And learn.
A few years back, before my falling out with Cheetos, when I was still consuming mind-boggling quantities of the crispy orange snacks of yumminess, my husband found endless entertainment in the vague hint of orange that forever radiated from the keys on my laptop. It wasn’t a heavy caking by any means, just the slightest tint. I dabbed at the keys with an ever so slightly damp cloth on a regular basis,tidying things up a bit, and things were going along just swimmingly.
Well, as is always the case with electronics, my laptop hit a rough patch. Things were running more or less okay, but I was having trouble with my word processing program. I had discovered that about one in every ten or so letters I typed didn’t show up on the screen. I was convinced that my skills and superhero-like speed on the keyboard was proving too much for my computer to keep up with. I needed a faster processor or a newer… insert something here that sounds impressively technical.
My husband is a computer guy. Like, for a living. He is used to trouble-shooting problems. Most of the time, he has assured me, the problem isn’t with the computer, but with the user. As a “user” I try not to be offended.
In the midst of my computer struggles, he was wise enough not to pose that particular theory. He suggested that the difficulty might be in the keys themselves, not the program keeping track of keystrokes. Looking back I am amazed at his ability to not look annoyed or even speak aloud his true suspicions. He grabbed one of those pressurized cans of air that is used to blow dust and stuff like that out of keyboards. That sort of thing can happen, he told me, and the dust gets trapped under the keys making it hard to push the key in far enough for the computer to register it.
Makes sense, right? And totally not my fault. Dust is everywhere. I know. I dust my house all the time.
So my husband blew the air at the keyboard.
We were immediately engulfed in an enormous cloud of orange dust. Orange. Orange!
After a few more puffs, just to be sure, he said something to the effect of “I bet that will fix the problem.” What I heard…? “I told you so.” And he was right.
A word to the wise… eat responsibly.
I’ve been known to get my morning cereal down in the keyboard, but never anything orange.
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