It's scary. Your computer takes on a life of its own, and you try to stop it, and you can't. It's like being in a nightmare. Like the one I have where I'm in the middle of a street, six lanes of traffic, the traffic light turns green, and my feet won't move. In the nightmare, I wind up crawling on the pavement, slowly dragging my body across the street as the cars come closer and closer. Do they see me? I don't know.

     I don't know what to do when my computer goes bananas either, but here's my best shot at it, and I'm open to your ideas as well.

     1. Hit CTRL-Z (undo) or Escape in a computer situation like that? WELL, OF COURSE. But if you've got a real nightmare, it won't do any good.

     So you sit there until the computer has done its thing. Like making your life's work disappear or turning it into Ancient Ethiopian symbols. Or like 521 pages with the text just two inches wide on each page. And highlighted.

     Then you see if you can undo it.

     2. With my WordPerfect program, I get Reveal Codes, ALT-F3. If my life's work hasn't disappeared but is still there in semi-recognizable form, I can usually find the wrong command I hit and erase it, and the computer suddenly returns to normal. You can't do that with Microsoft Word. Word takes a different approach to word processing that makes Reveal Codes impossible. If you use Word, you can go to the following website to get some options, none of which are as good as Reveal Codes. But really you should just move on to the next step.

http://wordprocessing.about.com/od/wordprocessingsoftware/ss/revealcodes.htm

     Next step:

     3. I always let out a howl, much like the whistle of a locomotive as it approaches a crossing, followed by a few minutes of anguished commentary. Then I turn the computer completely off, losing whatever work I did after my last save, hoping that whatever horrible thing I did will also have disappeared when I turn it back on.

     So you turn it back on and the disaster is still in place. You then try step 4, below. Some people will prefer to take step 4 before letting loose the step 3 howl and turning off the computer. One danger, though: while you're clicking on all those options, the computer will do an automatic save on your material, thus turning into CEMENT the mistake you've made. But do it your way.

     4. Find the item you may have accidentally clicked on your control panel and click it a second time, which MIGHT make it stop. If you don't know what item you clicked -- and obviously you don't or you wouldn't be in this mess -- you can click one after another. And then try all the other options under File, Edit, and so forth. I say you CAN, but in practice this makes other weird things happen, so that the Ancient Ethiopian symbols appear in magnified Letter Gothic type, one word per page. Which, for me, destroys whatever equanimity I've got left. But maybe your nerves are better. Take a deep breath, summon what courage you've got, and give it a try, undoing each wrong move.

     And then?

     5. I send a cry for help to friends and relatives who know more about computers than I do.

     And if no one's available? That happened to me one August. August is a VERY poor month to have your computer become malignantly autonomous. So is any hour after ten p.m. You not only cannot moan loudly or call for help, you can't get to sleep once you give up and go to bed.

     6. The lowest point I've ever reached was the time my computer toolbar disappeared. It was absolutely gonzo. Or not in any place I could see, at least, so there was nothing to click on to get it back. In desperation, as my ultimate fallback position, I turned to WINDOWS FOR DUMMIES, and I must say that, after a couple hours of study, I found the answer to my problem. Learned a few things too.

     As I ponder, however, I must say that the ultimate, ultimate fallback position -- assuming it's not a toolbar but your life's work that's gone -- is

     7. A computer expert who can find it on your hard drive. Translated from the Ancient Ethiopian and with more than one word per page.

     And if you, dear reader, have better solutions, or additional solutions, I'd love to hear them. A lot of other people would too. Write me at Janette@foodandfiction.com.

NOTE: The only further suggestion I've gotten so far, and it's from my favorite computer techie, is "Throw the computer out the window and get a pencil and paper." And I'm sure we've all been tempted.

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