Technical difficulties

It always seems that technical malfunctions happen at the worst of times. I try to remember to never say, "Let me show you how easy this is . . . " or "Let me show you how well this works . . . " I am absolutely sure that those are the famous last words of someone who met their demise strangled in a mass of cords and cables. Right as I'm testing out gear, in between all the tasks that have to be completed before the end of school and my departure for Spain, my e-mail decides to malfunction. My primary account was determined to neither send nor receive mail. ARGH!!! I went on line. I checked the help desk. I followed directions. I printed out pages of instructions. Nothing, nada, zilch, zip, as a matter of fact, things only got worse, if that was possible. The final instructions said to delete, yes, you heard me right, delete the account and start over. After much nail biting, lip chewing, file moving anxiety I pushed the button. You guessed it, it was not a success. It was an abject failure. Oh, the account was deleted alright. The problem was I couldn't set it up again. I got message after message telling me that either my user name and password was incorrect. I could go no farther. I was finally reduced to calling the tech help line and relinquishing control of my computer to a perfect stranger. Ruth walked me through the whole horrid ordeal. In a few short moments she had me up and running again. I spent this morning, before the frantic e-mail fail, setting up techno-gear and accounts for the trip across the pond. I'm ticking off the items on my plan. Data plan, check. Text messaging, check. E-mail, check, thank you, Ruth! This time next week I'll be on my way to Spain!