I lost my "Q"

As I have grown older, I have found greater significance and meaning in the small, inconsequential and mundane happenings in life.

Such an event occurred the other day when I was typing on my 6 year old Windows XP laptop.... a hand me down from my 2nd wife that is indicative of my life in many ways.

One of my more recently excepted and accepted Life Axioms is.....

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If it fulfills a function - meets a need - does the job, just keep using it and doing it..... until it doesn't anymore.

Complete failure is an option that I now weave into my fabric of life as a hint to take action..... aka.....

http://willsonwheels.blogspot.com/2016/09/ill-cross-that-bridge-when-in-it.html

And this fucking Dell Windows XP laptop with Office 2007 just won't quit.

Oh, it's caught a couple of viruses recently, but I took it to my computer doc in Santa Fe and he fixed it and handed it back to me with the recommendation..... "You know - you really need to get a new computer."

Obviously, he doesn't read my blog.

So anyway, I was typing up a report the other day on my antiquated laptop and went to type the word "questions" and ended up with "uestions" which is a really weird looking word or a word looking weird - which is pretty much the same thing only backwards and what happens when you take the "Q" from a word where it belongs.

I quickly realized my "Q" wasn't working.... which in and of itself conjures up all kinds of Life Theme sort of Thoughts.....

Well it does for me anyway.

At first, I just worked around my missing "Q" by using the symbol "?'s" for "questions" but quickly found out that this doesn't work for all the "Q's" in my vocabulary or my life.

Because despite the fact that the letter "Q" represents the thinnest slice in the dictionary pie, it does contribute a lot of really cool words that we can't do without in our vocabulary or our life....

Quiet, Quake, inQuire, reQuire, Quest, Question, uniQue, Queen, Queer.....

I mean these are really meaningful words, many of which I resemble at times.

"Q" is like EF Hutton - doesn't have much to say but when it does you better listen.

Oh and for you X's, Y's, Millenials or anybody that isn't more than 50 years old, who doesn't have a clue who EF Hutton is.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MXqb1a3Apg

I remember a series of Star Trek: The Next Generation, that featured a character named "Q" who was kind of an intergalactic Brat Know-it-All who didn't have complete control of his seeming omnipotence....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(Star_Trek)

From that Wikipedia link:

Q is a fictional character in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as in related media. In all of these programs, he is portrayed by John de Lancie. Q is a being who is unconstrained by, and possesses power over, normal human notions of time, space, and even reality itself – his fellow Q and he are said to be omnipotent, and he is continually evasive regarding his motivations. The name "Q" also applies to all other individuals of the Q Continuum – an alternate dimension accessible to only the Q and their guests. The true nature of the realm is said to be beyond the comprehension of "lesser beings" such as humans, therefore it is shown to humans only in ways they can understand.

Here's a few tongue in cheek YouTube clips to better link (pardon the punny) the concept of "Q" from STNG with the importance of "Q" in life -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKG1fxvxed4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeKwrjbji1g

Incidentally that rotating blue object in the clip above does kind of resemble my Dell laptop.... and love the Mr Data ad lib overdub.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Wru5teAPw

At the 1:54 mark..... A kick in our complacency?  Really - what a concept!

So when I lost my "Q" on my keyboard and intermittently started generating word gibberish, I kinda felt like I had entered a different dimension of lesser being.

So naturally, I had to get my "Q" back, so I Googled "Losing my Q" and found all kinds of IT and other lifestyle suggestions, of which the simplest, easiest one was to just plug a new keyboard into my laptop via a USB cable and press on...

Which I did.

Now my Rocked World is Rock Steady with my "Q" restored.

But it made me Think.....

Which is never a Safe and Secure State....

I hope I never lose my "Q" in Life.