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Atlas Momma

It all began with a sneeze.

Convinced that I had completely overdone it with the dusting, I figured I would be OK and tried not to notice that my head ached and my eyes were hurting.

Flu is no fun and I didn't want it, but despite my attempts at denial, it hit, full force and sent me coughing and sniffing to my bed for three days.

I was so pleased to finally be able to get up and about again but, the law of averages dictated I suppose that if I had the flu, everyone else was going to get it too. Not any old flu either, oh no, this flu mutated into the latest throwing up epidemic variety and settled itself into both my children. That was on Friday.

Saturday was exhausting. I ran up and down the stairs like a step exerciser on steroids fetching drinks, paracetamol suspension, fruit, cuddly toys, gameboys...you name it, I carried it up those stairs.

Down the stairs I carried festoons of used Kleenex, half-eaten gingerbread men and buckets. Lots of buckets, bowls, waste bins...receptacles of all kinds which had been used for the drinks, paracetamol suspension, fruit and other indistinguishable contents of my childrens' "eject at random" digestive systems.

In between all of this Olympic stair racing, I was pleased to have taken delivery of my new CD-R and my new, heavy duty computer table. This was a deluxe, mother of all tables. It would house both my main PC's [towers & monitors] and allow me to whizz between them on my chair-o-wheels. Great!

Finally I had the whole system set up and, glowing with pride I grabbed a few hours sleep.

Sunday morning I awoke to find that the central heating radiator in the lounge had ruptured and we were ankle-deep in water. Well, I was. The children were upstairs, above the watershed and calling for drinks, paracetamol suspension, fruit...

Several abortive attempts at turning off the water later I threw myself upon the mercy of a neighbor's husband. After about 30 minutes of testosterone-powered wrench-wielding he announced in triumph that he had turned off the water and off he went.

I surveyed the scene. It was January, I had just had the flu, the children both still had the flu, they were throwing up like clockwork and we had no water nor any heating. This meant no teeth-cleaning, lavatory flushing or anything really, which one might place under the sanitary heading.

I considered my options and decided to try and ignore the lounge and concentrate on my new table between missions upstairs and down. At least in bed the kids would be warm.

Have you ever tried to use a computer keyboard wearing thermal gloves? Hmmm...

Having formatted both PCs prior to their move, I set about reinstalling. I set up my new CD-R, put a CD into it and...

...CRUUUNNCCHH...ZZIIPPP...GGGZZHHHHFFTTT...

the CD actually shattered into a zillion pieces inside the drive. I was running around, pulling plugs and generally panicking. There began the [very technical] operation of seeing how much damage had been done and if it could be repaired.

(Anyone knowledgeable in the field of computer repair should look away now)

I took the drive out very carefully, turned it on its side and shook it a lot. Out dropped lots of little pieces of CD. I shook it some more, more bits dropped out. On the third shake a piece of gray plastic which looked ominously like a part of the internal workings of the drive dropped out. I pretended I hadn't seen it.

At least now I had something to occupy my son. He was awake and bored so I gave him the pieces of the broken CD to put together like a jigsaw.

You see, that's the kind of mother I am. I will even give my children computer-related jobs to do, from their sick beds. No, no...I have no shame, its true!

We got it all, bar one piece which I could hear rattling but it wouldn't come out. Figuring there was nothing else I could do, I put the drive back in. There was a moment of silence as I hesitated, before pressing the "Power on" button.

Miraculously, the drive seemed fine. I threw a free AOL coaster/frisbee into it to test it - yup, it was OK. Whew, disaster averted.

So, I went about my happy little way, anyone peering through my office window may have wondered why I was sitting at my computer wearing gloves, a fleece jacket, a woolly hat and petting a penguin. But at least the computers were working.

By Monday I realized that the children, although still ill themselves, had been good enough to share their flu around so that I got it back again.

During my relapse, my son obviously decided that he was feeling better and set about tending to himself. I'm not quite sure what he was trying to achieve - food or warmth but in any case, what he actually managed to do was set the kitchen on fire.

I know what you are thinking. Fire + water = no fire. Ah...remember the central heating? No water! There were a few moments of distress and a rather sooty, kid yelling "The kitchen's on fire, the kitchen's on fire!", like I didn't know that and for a minute or two I wasn't sure whether to call the emergency services or just get warm.

Luckily, during the post-flood, mop up attempt on Sunday, we had drenched two bath towels. These were in a bucket [no, not "one of the receptacle buckets which had been upstairs"] waiting to be washed/thrown away [depending on how long I was without a washer].

They were big enough and sodden enough to toss over my son's creative little blaze. In future, I reminded him, do not turn the oven up to its highest setting and place your food inside it a plastic dish...

How I made it through to the next day, I will never know and just as I had given up all hope of ever being warm again in my life, my neighbor's husband returned with a bigger wrench and announced that he was going to isolate the radiator so that I could turn the heating and the water back on. Hooray! Things were looking up. I actually had a hot bath later that evening and felt relaxed.

Wandering into the computer room, still feeling very relaxed, I realized that I was not the only one. My new computer table seemed to be listing strangely, then I was sure, as I looked at it, that I saw it move. I figured I might be suffering from whatever the opposite of a desert mirage was, with it having been so cold and all. But no, a closer inspection revealed that the back left-hand side table leg was now just off a 45° angle and the whole thing was about to go...

I shot down to the floor and dove under the table in time to stop the whole thing from collapsing. Bracing it with my shoulder [remember, on this table were two huge monitors, two enormous towers and a host of other computer-related paraphernalia]. It was heavy.

I began calling the children. I crouched there for 10 minutes, wailing for help until one of them heard me. I couldn't move, I had become an integral part of that table set up. I had become Atlas Momma, holding up my table world as, being a self-confessed cyberjunkie, my world was on that table!

Then I closed my eyes as I heard myself saying "That's right, pull the plug out of the socket...now take the gray cable and pull it out of the back of the monitor...yes, they gray one...no, don't get any scissors, it will come out if you pull hard on it...no, not too...oh, no, now don't cry, it wasn't your fault, I have another one...that's it...just lift the monitor off the table, both of you together, use both hands...be careful, its heavy..."

This went on until the kids had removed everything from the table and I was able to get up, as with nothing on top of it it was less likely to break. I do now have the biggest coaster in the street as all its good for is resting my coffee cup on.

<BTW> I was totally lying about the penguin but I thought it was a nice touch.