The Worst Monday Ever -or- Fuck you, Sony
My Monday morning started at 5:50am on Sunday. Just about the time one of the switches decided to give up the ghost. I, of course, didn't find out that anything was wrong because any alert emails would have required the Exchange server to be online and connected to, oh, anything. So I'm blissfully unaware of anything and preparing for a leisurely Sunday of football and maybe some Skyrim (Major General Kittyman needs to project arrows into faces or else he gets grumpy), when I get a call from the stage manager. Now, I know something is up, because this is not a voice I should be hearing on a Sunday morning, so immediately, I know shits about to get real, yo.
The phone call is thankfully brief, and as far as I know, the email server is down. Not a good thing, but fixable, that's what backups are for. But I also quickly find out that I can't remote in either. The downward spiral steepens.
As I'm getting my things together and walking the dogs, I get another call from the box office, can't get into the ticketing software. Double fuck. It's holiday performance season, and things are busy, this is super not good. The dogs get a speed walk and a loveless goodbye as I race out the door.
Switch #5: 24 Ports of Fail.
I show up and see that the DNS server is kaput. Okay, that's easy, we have a spare. Wait, wut? The spare is disconnected too. Oh no. If I have to rebuild a DNS server, my morning repair gig has transmogriphied into a full day at the office. See ya December football. Major General Kittyman, your thirst for face wounds will have to be slaked at a later date.
Now I'm settling into troubleshooting mode, under the watchful eyes of the box office manager and executive director, so there was no pressure or anything. I'm making phone calls to the CTO, who's a telecommuter and we're trying to track down a network specialist. Finally, some of the testing pans out and I figure out the problem. It's a dead switch in the stack. Thanks, useless status lights, you really helped me out on this one. Also, that's called sarcasm. Fast forward to 6pm, and 9 hours later I'm heading home and the only game I'm going to get to watch is the Cowboys/Giants on Sunday Night Football. It was a decent game, but I can't stand either team. It was like watching a wrestling match between Snookie and Rick Perry. Hoping maybe it'll end in a tie so nobody wins and they'll both get an STD and we can all laugh at their shame.
The only image I could find of the TV. This model has been erased from history like Soviet dissidents.
Monday morning, proper, arrives. I'm naturally tired and skip the gym. I sleep in, but have plenty of time to get up, get the dogs walked, and get to my carpool buddy by 8am. At this point, I must mention the Sony television that is camped in the cargo area of my Xterra. I had picked it up from a friend's place Saturday with the intention of dropping it off at her mom's place the following weekend when I had some time and I was down to visit my father. Up until now, its sturdy plastic base had interacted just as expected with the tacky rubberized floor of the cargo area and everything had been just peachy, aside from a bit of noise as it creaked back and forth. Nothing I couldn't deal with. This morning, however, whatever was holding that TV down, be it gravity, friction, or the prayers of a million children, decided to release it's grasp on it and the damn thing came loose from it's moorings, defied every law of physics I could remember, and bounced around the cargo area and back seat like the damn thing was rolling on greased bearings. It slammed back and forth into the back of the seat, then into the rear hatch. I'm not driving aggressively, but this thing was flying about with the force of Thor's god damned hammer and actually broke the latch on the rear door (a repair bill I'm going to love to see when it gets here). During it's frenzied escape attempt, the plastic shell of the TV began to snap and crack, eventually shattering completely, sending shards of plastic about the entire passenger compartment. The TV continued it's mosh pit to hell as I pulled into a Bartell's parking lot, texted my carpool buddy to go ahead and drive herself in to work, and then got out to assess the damage. I opened the hatch, well, didn't really open as touch the hatch and it swung open on it's own, you know, because it's not really latched to anything anymore. The TV was in pieces, the tube and circuits were on one side of the cargo area, the plastic housing with the speakers and buttons was strewn across to the other side, and everywhere else that I could see was littered with sharp pieces of plastic and over a decade's worth of dust bunnies that had just been violently evicted from their home inside the television's case.
Watching it thrash around in the rear-view mirror was like being in the deer scene from Tommy Boy.
After looking at the carnage, I roll the TV screen-side down and check the voracity of the grip given by the rubberized flooring. Satisfied that the destruction will be limited, I get back behind the wheel, and scream obscenities at my windshield for 30 seconds. I have now vented enough rage to safely drive back to my apartment. I speak to the remains of the television, "This has gone too far. I'm going to end you." I pull into the complex and back up to the dumpsters. I get out, prop up the broken hatch, and get the a pair of dakine snowboarding gloves from one of the side pockets. They're not ideal protection, but it's better than bare skin. I take the time to vent some additional anger by pulling wires, breaking plastic, and snapping a circuit board in half before chucking them into the dumpster. It's not exactly eco-friendly, but at this point, it was the TV or my sanity. I approach the rear of the SUV, preparing myself for the largest piece, the picture tube. I bend at the knee, get a grip, and try to hoist the thing to a carry-able position. Impossible. I've reached an impass and come to a realization. The key to a Sony trinitron's excellent picture the fact that the CRT technology is powered by a piece of a neutron star. The tube of the 37" television is glued to the earth, or rather, the floor of the Xterra. My futile human muscles are no match for whatever alien technology lives within the tube. It moves on whim alone, and cares not for the wants and needs of man. I steel myself, get a solid grip, and call forth the strength of my ancestors, lifting the mass, and feeling as if I'm tearing spacetime in my attempt. The tube is free, dangling from my arms, and I can feel it pulling viciously at my very fucking skeleton as it tries to make its way to the ground. Rage is the only thing keeping it aloft as I take a few careful steps to the dumpster, boosted the thing with my knee and push it over the lip and into someone else's list of problems.
I have won the day, but at a cost. I clean out the back of the the SUV, sweeping plastic and dust into my hands and then into the dumpster. My adrenalin is subsiding and I'm beginning to hurt. My legs, arms, back, and hand are all on fire. It was too much for one man to do alone, and I'm sure I'll be paying this bill for weeks to come.
If I actually had a power ring, I would have flung the TV into the sun.
I'm removing my gloves, getting ready to put this chapter of my life behind me and something is caught on my right hand, and it stings like a viper. The gloves comes off and what's there, one final insult, one final injury from my foe. A 3/4" shard of plastic is wedged into the side of my knuckle, and blood is streaming from my hand. I wipe it up as best as I can and head into the house. I have issues with needles, and that mild phobia has carried over to this jagged shard of plastic. I look wistfully at the bottle of scotch on the refrigerator, envisioning a civil war-era soldier numbing himself before an amputation, but I gave up the drink, so this is going to be a very sobering experience in more ways than one. I get out my leatherman and grasp the visible end of the plastic, and slowly, pull it from my skin. I can see a little lump move under my knuckle skin as I pull it out, and I begin to feel a bit faint. An image of myself from a 3rd person perspective appears and I imagine fainting, and then waking up hours later in a pool of my own blood as my dogs both stare at me, wondering what new game this is supposed to be. I shake it off, yank out the plastic, and then find out yet another surprise...I'm out of bandaids.
So, tape and a paper towel is it, and I'm make my way into the office.
No 24 hour span has been as physically and emotionally draining as this past day. The only thing I have to look forward to is the gym tonight, where I plan on lifting weights until I stop hating an inanimate object. But that's a few hours off, and right now, I'm filled with terrible glee knowing that my nemesis is a the bottom of a steel box, waiting to be crushed, buried, and forgotten.
Fuck you, TV.