Yesterday was one of those days.

Two people I know -- I'll call them J and C -- needed help.
Its one of those days when I think I was right on for choosing an email handle of theExpensiveBabysitter[at]fmita.org sooooo many years ago.

Both called me on the phone;

J had a deadline he wanted to meet that was just nine (9) minutes away!
The power had gone out, and he was trying to use his computer to submit some paperwork.

Fortunately, he has a laptop -- a traditional laptop -- at his disposal, so he quickly grabbed the thumb drive with the file out of the now dead desktop, and inserted it into his laptop.

When the Windows prompt came up on the laptop: "Tap to choose what happens with removable drives" he proceeded to tap the prompt with his finger.

When nothing happened, he quickly called his trusty tech support -- ME.

I asked if he had tapped with his finger or clicked with his mouse.
He replied the finger one; I told him to use his mouse.

He did,
it worked,
J got his paperwork submitted one minute before deadline.

Happy Ending :-)

C had just been visiting at our house, and had arrived home (in the dusk, quickly turning to dark) and called in crises mode to report -- to paraphrase -- I can't get the key out .. the lights are blinking .. and everything is acting crazy; can you come over right away and get the key out.

Somebody close by suggested she probably didn't have the gear shift in Park.
I quickly dismissed that logic for several -- now seemingly more appropriate -- reasons:
C can't be in that scenario (that was me being real nice with my description);
and if that is indeed what the problem is, how is my telling C that the car needs to be in park before you can take the key out gonna help, when -- stay with me here -- that should be something that you do (put the car in park) EVERY SINGLE TIME you want to leave the car, and if you have trouble doing something automatically, how could do it any differently under stress when somebody tells you to do it.

Well, turns out the car wasn't in Park, and the lights were behaving exactly like one would expect in a brand new car (i.e.: unless its a lemon, everything should be working perfectly).

But, as I indicated, in hindsight, walking C through trying the gear shift before jumping in my car to come to her rescue might have worked just as well.

I'll never know.
But I took the opportunity to ask C to please relax, don't stress out; I told her she'll die if she doesn't take better care of herself, of which NOT STRESSING is key.

Either way,

Happy Ending :-)