Born wacky, I guess...

My parents and I live in the same town. Them on the SW end of town and I on the NE end of town. It isn't that I can't stand being around my parents, so I chose to live at the polar opposite end of Eugene - it just happened that the place we have now had the best features. Anyhoo, last night, I decided to pay a visit to my parents. After all, I haven't seen them in several weeks and mom had just returned home from another one of her long business trips.

So upon my arrival, mom is in the office fiddling with her new laptop - I assumed so that she could work on the stuff she brought home from the office again. Dad was migrating between a show on OPB and the kitchen, where he had been installing new kitchen cabinets. I give mom and dad hugs while mom explains that she's having trouble with the laptop. I offer to help troubleshoot the problem and follow mom into the office.

It appeared that the keyboard wasn't functioning correctly - keys weren't assigned correctly so that typing "ABC" came out "q5D". Mom thinks that the problem was because she hadn't installed a new Windows update when prompted early in the week. I run the anti-virus software and fiddle around in the Control Panel looking for the usual suspects. Nothing worked. I tried running the Help Tool for answers, but no luck either since there wasn't a clear index, and I couldn't do a keyword search with a messed up keyboard.

Then I came upon a link to a LiveChat Support. (yes, I realize that my keyboard wasn't working correctly) Hey, why not give it a shot? Mom insists that it's a problem with the Windows update but at the same time, she is snickering at me for trying to chat on that keyboard. I try to type "keyboard not working", hoping that enough letters would show up correctly to get the point across. Instead, it shows up "7ehb*a4d np5 w@%}n'". Yea, good luck with that, I thought. I couldn't even type my name and had to use "Chr!s" as my username to start the chat. I tried typing a simple "help!", but that came out "n#8!". This might be a long night....

As I was thinking this, I can see that the support person was running a remote diagnostic on the laptop. He types : "Press NumLoc"

DOH!