Deb's Musings and Fine Photography, With My Apologies

computer monitor

"Abort, Retry, Ignore"

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand:
It read "Abort, Retry, Ignore".

Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed my options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, I must adopt one-
Choose: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".

With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key-
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".

I tried to catch the chips off guard-
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
It was just not in the cards,
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation,
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation-
Choose: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".

There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
By my own machine accosted;
Getting up, I turned away and paced across my office floor.
And then I saw the most awful sight,
A bold and blinding flash of light,
A lightning bolt that cut the night and shook me to my very core.
My PC screen collapsed and died, "Oh no, my database", I cried.
I thought I heard a voice reply, "You'll see your database-Nevermore!"

To this day I do not know
The place to which our data goes
Perhaps it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored.
But as for productivity-well
I fear it has gone straight to hell.
And that's the tale I have to tell
Your choice: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
Author Unknown