Italic = thoughts

Regular bold = actions or words

Dammit, mouse won’t move

Wiggle mouse, wiggle mouse again.  Wiggle mouse harder. Pick up mouse and look at bottom.

What the hell am I looking for? Is that light supposed to be on or off?

Put mouse down, wiggle some more. Punch random keys. Wiggle. Push up down left right arrows. Hit enter.

Replace the batteries.

Ask wife: “has the mouse been causing you problems?”  “Yes.” Go find batteries.

Wonder if these batteries.com batteries will last. Use the Ray-o-Vac.

Turn mouse over, look for place to put batteries. Get can of Diet 7-up.

No friggin’ clue where these go.

Look at other thingy the mouse communicates with.

Idiot, that gets power from USB.

Try to open it anyway.

There’s a little slidy thing.

Hold little slidy thing down with thumb and try to open mouse. Thumb slips. Try again. Thumb slips. Try to hold down slidy thing and open other end of mouse.

You are a real idiot mouse-boy.

Go back to other end of mouse and hold slidy thing down with thumbnail. More force on the part that should open. 

Hope I break the damn thing, then I’ll just go get another one. They’re probably only ten bucks or so.

It opens. Replace batteries, replace cover. Wiggle. Nothing. Take batteries out to make sure they were put in correctly. Yes.  Hook shot with 7 -up can. It’s gooooooooooooood!  Clean up drips on desk.

I guess, I probably have to reestablish the connection.

Push connection button on transmitter. Wiggle. Wiggle harder. Turn mouse over and look at bottom.

Is that light in the slot  supposed to light? Seems like it should.

Push reset button. Wiggle. Nothing.  Put mouse real close to transmitter and push connect button and then reset button. Wiggle, wiggle, slam.

Dammit! Hey, she was messing around with USB expander, maybe cord is loose.

Follow trail of transmitter cord under over and around the bazillion other cords on the desk.

I gotta get the cords straightened up if I’m ever gonna win “coolest home office.” Nah, why bother.

Reaching around printer, over modem, around external hard drive.

Damn tri-focals.

Lift up glasses to look thru a lens where I can have my head down and still look up.

That looks like it.

Snug it up.  Wiggle. Nope. She leaves with friend. Get a diet coke and go outside and play with dogs, skim Esquire with Angelina Jolie on cover.

Photoshopped.

Skim Car and  Driver.

I can’t wait to see the new Blue Devil Corvette. Jag looks nice. The Starsky and Hutch Torino was a lame car.

Slam dunk Coke bottle into waste basket.

You know when she gets home, she will want to check email.  Ah, she can use the laptop. Yeah, but you will want it later and you will still have the stuck mouse. Remember that Best Buy Gift Card? Spend it. It’s in the console of the car.

Go out front door.

Oh yeah, she parked it in back when she got back from Lowe’s. Owwwww, still hurts to walk. I must look like a dork. Should I blog about that? No, TMI, you would have to explain why you walk funny. It would appeal to Gretchen’s seventh grade humor.

Crap, almost rear ended that guy, what’s with the start a turn and then stop asshat? Oh great he’s going to Best Buy too. Probably yell at me. I’ll just go to the other end of the parking lot.

Hi, Wireless mouses?  Wireless Mouses?  Where? OK, I think I see them.

Damn trifocals. Do they still classify customers when they walk in the door, let’s see there were Jills, where? I don’t see them this is the cable section. Cable, connectors,  sound cards, network cards. Crap.

Hi, where are the wireless mouses?

Oh on the other side…

Thanks.

59.99, 34.99, 29.99, where are the cheap ones? 

Pick up cheapest wireless mouse by Dynex.  $24.99.  Put it back. Pick it up again.

Maybe there are some open items. Ah, screw it.

Pick up Dynex mouse again. Put it down again.

Hi, Where are wired mouses.  Wired mouses. OK, thanks.  You mean I can buy a wireless mouse for the same price as a wired mouse?  I thought they would be about ten bucks.  OK, thanks.

Go back to wireless section, get Dynex mouse.

Dynex, a real power house in home computing.

Dig out Best Buy loyalty card and gift card and check out.

Only five bucks on that card? Must have been a freebie I got for signing up for something.

Go home. Find box cutter.

I hope I gash my guts and I’ll sue the bastards – the whole damn bunch.

Dig out all the paraphenalia.

An install disk?  Install disk? Do I have to uninstall the old mouse? Oh, crap.

Go outside and watch dogs play around until they bark at neighbor’s kids.

Our dogs are better behaved than their kids.

Get Diet Coke and sit down with instructions.

That’s French you idiot.

OK, have to disconnect old mouse transmitter cable. Here it is.

Shit. That’s not the one I checked before, this one is vertical, the other one was horizontal.

Snug up connection. Wiggle. Mouse works.

You dipwad. You dipwad. You wasted the whole damn afternoon when you could have been surfing and blogging.

Wife walks in, “have you moved since I left?”

UPDATE: Returned the mouse and was wandering around the store, and six feet away from the 26.99 mouse display was a 26.99 KEYBOARD PLUS wireless mouse of the same brand!