The reason for sharing this story will make more sense in a future post….

An email to my uncle Bill Cowan:

Hi Bill,

I’ve had your scanner for quite some time now, and as I’ve been using it regularly, I continued to remind myself that I should ask your advice on buying you a new one to replace the one that has become mine (and so I could keep it).

Only 2 nights after having watched (read: listened to, since my eyes were covered for most of it) Paranormal Activity 2 with Em and Kathryn, a shelf that has been drilled into concrete since we moved in fell off the wall at 5:40 am.

As you can see by the pictures, we required a special drill to pierce the concrete beyond the plaster walls and anchored the screw with metal anchors. When the shelf fell, it sent books flying everywhere, a plant potted in one of Grandma’s crystal bowls tumbled down with dirt escaping, and when the shelf itself landed on my desk top it punctured the cheap Ikea MDF surface. Luckily the crystal landed in the cradle of my purse, placed haphazardly on my chair’s back, and didn’t break!

Also lucky is that this happened in the night and not while I sit working during the day — as the puncture on my desk lines up roughly to where my face would have been! It also managed to avoid my own laptop left open and my company laptop also left open!

What did bite the dust, as you can undoubtedly guess, is your scanner. Though I haven’t tested it yet, its remarkable likeness to a maraca suggests its performance (in regards to scanning) is likely diminished; though, given a handle, it would make an excellent musical instrument.

After noble Richard was coerced out of bed to check the noise, and the decision was made to attend to clean-up in the light of day, I lay awake convinced the demons had come for me….

…that is, until I remembered that in a fit of organising, I had placed the scanner atop a stack of books on the offending shelf. It took 2 days for the extra weight to pull the shelf down, but it’s the only logical explanation and I’m staunchly (pun intended) sticking to it.

And so, I’m finally prompted to email you and ask, Dear Bill, to please send me a link for a scanner that I will buy and likely have shipped directly to you. I may buy the same model for myself, if I feel so inclined.

Hope you are sufficiently too creeped out by my story to care about the broken scanner!

Love,
Ellen