Anything else you want me to do?

Even though everyone will say it was just an accident, I know it was preventable.

It all begins with the hollywood knock on the door (or in this case opening of the tent flap), "Hey Air Force, your needed in the TOC."

So with only a few hours sleep, I unwind from my sleeping bag, throw on the uniform and boots and wipe the sleep from my eyes as I walk into the TOC. We have an asset on station that is wanting to talk to the TACP. So we get comms and start working, and I relay from the army what they want the asset to do. It eventually begins working as everyone wants, and at this point in the story I am comfortably in hero mode.

And then in one fell swoop I am firmly returned to bottom of the totem pole. I had already had one cup of coffee, and had just poured myself a second cup.

At this point, coffee, computers and Rule #1 should pop into everyone's mind. So let this post be a reminder to all that single points of failure do still exist. Let me serve as a warning to all--please use cups with lids. Or, at least use a heavy coffee mug. But no one in their right mind would place a paper cup of coffee right next to the main air force secure laptop. As I am writing this after the fact it seems so self evident. So, of course, eveyone knows the rest of the story.

The speaker sounds off, I grab the handset, the cord hits the cup, the cup tips to the right, right into the laptop keyboard, and--as if on cue--the computer shuts down. And I try to non-chalantly act as if everything is cool. And I remain cool. Except the Command SgtMajor is right next to, and he quips, "I think these are waterproof." However, the waterproof toughbook was to the left of the coffee, the watersoaking sponge laptop was to the right.

As I am soaking up the coffee, enter stage right, my Tech Sergeant walks in ready for his normal day in the office. He is about to realize his computer skills are to be tested this very moment. You know the situation is bad when your report is not believed. As in, "You are kidding, right?" Eventually, the full truth hits home. Thankfully, the hard drive is good, so we just swapped it into another laptop. He asked me to take the sponge laptop to the commo guy and see if they can wring it out. The commo guy looks at me and says, "You know, this is 100% preventable."

Now is not the time to argue stats and probability--so I agree, and ask when I can pick it back up. I report back to the Tech Sergeant, see that everything is working again, and, unwittingly, ask, "Anything else you want me to do?" He just looks at me.