Dude, we got a Dell. It sucks.

So we're having technical difficulties with our practically brand-new laptop. It won't turn on. This, from my uneducated point of view, is bad. Of course, we don't live in the U.S. right now so we can't exactly call Dell and get it fixed or get a new one. On the upside, we can't call Dell and spend 17 hours on hold only to be asked snarky questions like "Um, did you TRY pressing the ON button?!" by some pimply-faced dweeb who lives in his mom's basement.

We took the computer to our school's resident tech wizard and asked him what we should do. The response we received was surprisingly like the one we would've gotten from Dell, sans long periods sitting listening to hold music.

ME: Um, our computer won't turn on at all.

COMPUTER MAN: OK. Is the battery in?

ME: Uh...yes.

CM: Is it the right battery?

ME: (Thinking, uh...no we found this one on the ground and decided to try it!) Yes.

CM: Oh, well, did you plug it in? If the battery is dead, it needs to be plugged in.

The following is what I would have liked to have done:

ME: (smacking forehead) My God! You're brilliant! ELECTRICITY! Eureka! THANK YOU computer man!

The following is what I did do, after pausing to bite my tongue and take a deep breath.

ME: Yes. Yes I plugged it in.

And so it went. It's not looking good for our computer. This is fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. Still, I'm holding out hope that Computer Man can save the day. He's done it before with other various gadgets, and he really is quite good at what he does. Meanwhile, I'm going to go find myself some coffee, assuming I'm capable of handling that...

"You DID put hot WATER in the coffee machine, didn't you?"