On the De-Etch-A-Sketchification of my life

When our IT crowd got hold of my nonresponsive computer this morning, they managed to get it to power on only after shaking it up and down like an Etch-A-Sketch, and then they had to examine its inner workings to determine why it had suddenly entered Etch-A-Sketch mode. Project De-Etch-A-Sketchification had begun!

Now, though, after four days with no computer, I am finally up and running, in gratitude for  which I utter a weak Hurrah. Lugging that dead computer through airports and airplanes all day yesterday took a lot out of me, and this morning I've been scrambling so frantically to catch up on all the work I couldn't do without my computer that I was ready to collapse by noon.

But I'm still working. The really important stuff is done but I need to respond to a few more student drafts before I can consider myself sufficiently caught up. For motivation, I'm delaying a wonderful reward until after I'm done responding to drafts: downloading the zillions of photos I took in Florida. Limpkins! Ibises! Frank Lloyd Wright buildings! It's all good.

Meanwhile, I need to collect all the random thoughts scattered like sand across the Etch-A-Sketch screen of my travel-weary mind. A few tidbits:

• People who insist on carrying on loud cell-phone conversations for hours at a time in airport terminals should be required to say something entertaining on pain of death. I can listen to drivel for only so long before I want to kick someone, in which case I would be arrested for assault, but what about the person who insists on assaulting my ears with endless yammering about nothing in particular? 
• I heard a radio ad for a company called Aggressive Appliances, and I wondered who would want, for instance, a washing machine that spits suds in your face or a refrigerator that slams the freezer door shut on your hand when you try to grab Klondike bar. What would be worse than an Aggressive Appliance? How about a Passive-Aggressive Appliance: "Fine, go ahead and eat the Klondike Bar. See if I care. But don't come running to me when you can't fit into your swimsuit!"
• I'm driving through a lovely rural area in the very flat part of Florida when I spot in the distance a green hill with flocks of birds circling the summit. I wonder what hill it could be and whether it would be worth exploring. Then I catch a whiff of the stink and note  the garbage trucks crawling up the slope. Who wants to sign up for the Mount Landfill trek?
• If the airlines insist on delaying my flight so that I have to sprint from one end of a huge terminal to the extreme opposite end while carrying a backpack and computer bag, the least they could do is offer a water bottle and a free T-shirt.

At some point I probably ought to write something interesting and relatively coherent about my tech-free trip, but that's all I've got right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll be ready to give the Etch-A-Sketch another shake.