In which the computer breaks

If you have been following this blog, you know that we are currently hoping to have Sapphire and Ezio sent to the elementary school across the street. Part of our plan for doing this, involves having them work very hard at Rosetta Stone, in order to (hopefully) get as much French as possible into them in as short a time as possible. (I don't know whether you know anything about Rosetta Stone, but it's an immersive computer program. The idea is that when you're using the program to work on French, there is no English involved. It's entirely matching photos with descriptives of them.)

Last Wednesday night, Blaise sat down at "my" laptop (he has his own, this is primarily mine and the kids') and said, "Why is this disk hanging out?" Sure enough, the Rosetta Stone disk was hanging half out of the DVD drive. He pushed it in, and it popped right back out. Repeat, again. And again. He flips the disk over, and the back is all scratched up. Then of course, I get chewed out for leaving it in the DVD drive in the first place. So the Rosetta Stone DVD is ruined, and since we have an old (excessively copy protected version) we don't have a back up copy. Blaise does some hunting around online, and finds out that we may be able to get a replacement copy and emails the Rosetta Stone people to find out.

Next morning, Sapphire and Ezio get to skip Rosetta Stone and Blaise waits anxiously to hear back from the Rosetta Stone people. Cherry asks for her money back. What money? Why the money she put in the slot in the laptop of course. I interrogate her. Did you really put money in there? When? About 4 years ago. Hmm, she's only 3 years old, and the laptop is only 2 years old. Did you put it in yesterday? Yes, and I tried to get it back out with a spoon. Come to think of it, I did see her going at the laptop with a spoon, which I promptly took away. We try the Rosetta Stone disk in Blaise's laptop. It detects it. (He doesn't have the software installed so we can't actually run it.) Try a blank disk in my laptop. It comes out with the same scratches as the Rosetta Stone disk.

Time to find an Apple repair center. There's one in the city (actually there are several) and I call to make sure they're actually open, never a given in Paris in August. The guy tells me to bring the computer in at 6:00. Fortunately, we have AppleCare. Also fortunately, for once, my French isn't very good. I bring it in. "Le DVD ne marche pas." Fill in the forms. He tells me it will be ready Wednesday. I cross my fingers and hope they'll just replace the DVD player because I'm not at all sure that AppleCare covers money put into the DVD slot.

Yesterday afternoon the phone rings. They've replaced the DVD player. Cherry and I go pick it up. Cherry wants her money back. I tell her she's out of luck.