Splish Splash

My white Macbook has been looking awfully dingy for quite a while now. Despite my attempts to dust it and gently clean the keys and case, it seems my efforts are mostly a lost cause. This was no good reason for me to dump a glass of water on it, however, but on Saturday evening that's precisely what I did.

Some of you may know the story of my last laptop, the one I bought this one to replace. I won't go into details, but suffice to say that spilling a glass of water on a laptop is infinitely better than backing over one with a Montero. I'm improving.

I had a headache and, thinking it had something to do with dehydration, had set a full pint glass of water on my desk. I was listening to NPR and tidying up my room, when I squatted next to the bed to stuff my unneeded feather duvet underneath. I heard the "tink" of a glass tipping over and hastily stood up to see only about an inch of water left in the glass and the rest of it pooling up on my keyboard and underneath my computer. Blast. I quickly unplugged it and tipped it to drain the water out, being sure to adjust it so that the hard drive was pointing toward the ceiling, away from where the water would drain. Then I hopped on my BlackBerry to find out what else I should do.

I quickly found a website that told me to take out the battery, shut it off, and take it apart. Then I found a video showing me how to do just that. I replaced my RAM cards a month ago and had purchased a set of small screwdrivers for the job, so I set to work and had the computer completely disassembled in about ten minutes. I dabbed off whatever droplets were inside - not many - and thanked my lucky stars I had not been drinking orange juice or soda. Then I laid everything out on my desk overnight to let it dry completely.

The next morning I put it back together (ending up with three extra screws, somehow...), crossed my fingers, and turned it on. It took a while to start up, probably because I'd taken out the hard drive and it was trying to figure out what was going on, but start up it did. I backed up the few files I didn't already have copies of, and am now typing away on a still functional, much cleaner Macbook. Lessons learned:

-If you must drink near you computer, drink water.
-Smartphones are awesome.
-The inside of my computer is very dusty.
-Back up your files frequently.
-Previously purchased protection plans that cover any kind of damage are excellent for preventing total panic.