This story was inspired by a series of events involving bad capacitors over a period of many years, culminating in my fixing a monitor that had several capacitors go bad as described in this story.
It was first posted on Facebook.
We walked into her apartment. A typical woman’s apartment. Neat, clean, a place for everything. Mine was just like that, but the place for everything was the floor. Except for the dishes, of course. Most of them were in the sink.
Miss Trouble walked over to a neat, tidy desk. She turned on a neat, tidy computer. Suddenly there was a sound like a gunshot going off. I dove for the ground taking her with me.
“It’s OK, Mr. Blunt,” she said. She pushed me away and recovered her poise, which she had dropped when I tackled her (yes, I do have a Joisey accent). “It’s the computer. That’s the second time that’s happened.”
Hmn, well, that was the first time I’d been shot at by a computer. “Some new video game?” I asked.
“I don’t play video games,” she said.
I looked at the computer. The power was on. Nothing was happening. “This looks like trouble,” I said. “Can I take it with me?”
“Sure, Mr. Blunt. Thanks for your help.”
Great. Now she had me taking her trouble with me. I wondered what I’d gotten myself into.
I took the box. It was a standard desktop. I walked out with it. I didn’t know the first thing about gunfire coming from computers. But I had a friend, and for a box of doughnuts and a pizza I knew he’d tell me plenty. Probably a lot more than I wanted to know.