Things My Family Learned Today

First, let me give you some background. Alpha Female had the option of taking the essay portion of the bar exam on a laptop. Of course, she went with that option and was required to qualify her laptop for use during the exam. The time to qualify a laptop is over. That means that now she must either use her current laptop for the exam or else write out the essay answers in blue books. Alpha Female is a terrible hand writer. She is convinced that hand writing will probably cost her several points on the exam. It would be impossible to overstate how glad she is that she is able to use a laptop for the bar exam. Also, Thing 1 likes to sit in Alpha Female's chair and play with the laptop.

Now I can get to the point and tell you what I saw today. Thing 1 had been playing in the Alpha's bedroom quietly for several minutes. That alone should have let the Alphas know that trouble was brewing. Alpha Female checked on Thing 1 and saw her sitting at the laptop, so Alpha Female closed all of her applications and opened a text editor so Thing 1 could type her innermost thoughts. Alpha Female then came back into the living room and sat down with Alpha Male to watch the Tour de France. Next, Thing 1 came into the living room and handed Alpha Male the 'enter' key. Alpha Male set it on the side of the sofa and kept watching TV. (That's when I knew this wasn't going to end well.) Thing 1 went back into the bedroom. A couple of minutes later Alpha Male got up to check on Thing 1. Alpha Female could tell something was very wrong and came running. The laptop's keyboard was lying in pieces all over the desk! For the next several minutes all I heard was Alpha Male saying, "It's toast" and "You shouldn't let her play with your laptop" and "It's ruined." Meanwhile, Alpha Female visibly struggled to not have a nervous breakdown.

The good news is that we took this as a learning experience and learned:
1. You should not let a two year old play with a laptop.
2. If you are very patient, it is possible to stick most of the keys back on a keyboard.
3. There are a lot of keys on a keyboard that you never use and don't even really need.
Who knew?