Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

So -- anyway.... I think I've mentioned here, before, that when I'm dithering about whether or not to post to my Elle Jaye on a subject, I pull up my computer solitaire game, and use it as a coin toss (where a simple majority of red cards face up = "heads" and a simple majority of black cards = "tails"). If I haven't, I'm mentioning it now.

Well, I've been dithering ever since the Friday after the Inauguration about whether or not to post about Audrey's reaction to the same, and so, for one more time, I pulled up the computer solitaire game. Only... I kinda got more wrapped up in actually playing it, and forgot about posting.

After about five or six rounds, I finally ran the entire deck, and it started its animation of the cards bouncing. ... You know what I'm talking
about, right? Usually, I press the space bar to interupt it, but this time, I just let it run while I went to the kitchen to get my bedtime cocoa
and benedryl-clone.

Big mistake.

When I wheeled back to the office, I saw all 52 cards on the floor. Apparently (and I have no idea how this happened), they bounced right out of the computer. So I spent a good few minutes running around trying to remember where I'd put my mechanical grabber (I'm often forgetting where I used it last; I used to have four good ones, now I have three broken ones, and one that works).

You know, 52-card Pickup is a difficult enough game to play when you're using your own hands. Try doing it with a mechanical grabber thingie, and you've made it exponentially harder than that. On the minor side of the difficulty, is the fact that using a grabber means you can only put down things once you've picked them up at the edge of a fixed radius (especially since the grabber is longer than my arms) so I can't easily transfer stuff to my hands, first); and where you have to position yourself to pick them up in the first place is not always in the right place for that. But the major problem (especially in this case), is that there is absolutely no way you can pick up a piece of paper without creasing it.

So believe me, as soon as I tried to pick up the cards, they all started to scream and yell at me. It was not a pretty sight, or sound.

Um...

I didn't mean it as a threat of violence; it was only the truth. But I imagine my voice came out sounding pretty tense, at that point, so I can understand why they may have thought that. I just told them that I had to use the grabber to pick them up, or I'd run over them in
my wheelchair (52 playing cards can pretty much carpet an office floor, especially if part of that floor is already taken up with piles of old
books).

I felt bad about it, but that quieted them up right quick.

And before I knew it, they were shuffling out of the office, and sliding under the door of the little closet in the hallway (where I keep my pro-fun birthday hats, assorted stuff for crafts that don't fit anywhere else, and I think some curtain rings). They're all in the closet now.

At least, they're out of the way where I won't risk running them over. Naturally, Trixie and Amanda have parked themselves in front of that closet door, whiskers twitching.

I really do hope they understand that I don't want to hurt them, because I'd be in big trouble if they banded together for a preemptive attack. They're small, and they're paper, but I'd still be outnumbered 52 to 1.

At least the computer solitaire deck does not include the Jokers.

Maybe we'll be able to work something out in the morning, but I doubt I'll be able to get them back inside the computer. And no, I don't think I'll risk playing Free Cell, anymore, either.