I had some conflicts last week between technology and water: phone v. toilet; laptop and drop surface table v. glass of water.

I was happily working downstairs last week as it was a bit cooler. A pint glass of water sat next to me on the dining room table as I typed away on my third book.

Twilight Imperium is serious business.

Our table is a magical table — built by Geek Chic six years ago when they were popular but only wait for nine months popular. There is an amazing drop surface under the leaves for playing games. This is the table that Wil inherits from his parents in Best Laid Plans.

We have some custom maps printed that live under the plexiglass down there in the drop surface.

When I knocked my water over into the laptop keyboard, I was first concerned about technology. But my Lenovo Thinkpad is a champ — the water ran out, I pulled back the keyboard cover and dried that sucker out. No problem. I mean, let’s not fool myself, I was pretty upset. But after about 30-45 minutes, I was pretty sure I was okay.

And then I started thinking about the table. I open it up, clean the crumbs, remove the plexiglass (it’s big; really a two person job), lift the grid carefully, pull out the two maps that are something like 3 feet by 4 feet, balance my favorite fan on the edge of the table to dry them, knock the fan over breaking the fan blade. Lay down on floor. Get back up, finishing drying and cleaning, put table back together.

Contact Vornado fan customer support — they are sending me a new fan blade. I’ve had this fan for fifteen years. I love this fan. Maybe not as much as the table, but close.

Watch computer anxiously. Discover primary writing project (Book three in the Greywater Chronicles) file is corrupted and missing sections. Email Scrivener technical support. Get response in less than hour. Scrivener is AWESOME! Fix file. Find missing sections. Turn everything off and sit very carefully in the backyard.

Finish day at Rose and Thistle on patio. Thank god.

Lessons: never go anywhere near water again? Although I suspect I’d have worse luck with whiskey.

I had some conflicts last week between technology and water: phone v. toilet; laptop and drop surface table v. glass of water.

Part 1: the phone saga. I had my lovely Nexus 5x jammed in the back pocket of my jeans. I love this phone. It’s about five months old. It’s also way too large for most of my pockets.

So, with the phone sticking out of my back pocket, I sat down on the toilet to pee. When I stood up, the top edge of the phone caught on toilet seat and flipped into the pee water. My first toilet/phone accident.

I’m proud to say I immediately grabbed that phone without thinking about it. Turned it off. Dried it off. Stuck it in some rice, which kept pulling water out of the bottom ports. Ran a hand vac over it. Dabbed at it with Q-Tips.

Wonderfully, it powered up just fine a few hours later.

Only a day later when someone called me did I discover that the speaker for talking on the phone didn’t work. The good folks at Gadget Fix on NE Broadway took it apart, cleaned it, and now it’s working again. Phew.

But little did I know that I had more disaster in my future. I’ll pick at that wound tomorrow.