Don't Spill Wine on Your Computer Ports

Don’t Spill Wine on Your Computer Ports

A cautionary tale.

The possibility of spillage is one reason why I usually put my laptop away when indulging in a glass of wine (along with the usually poor decision to answer messages and comments while under the influence is another fine reason, but I digress.)

Don’t make this mistake (either one), but here’s one experience if you do.

I was actually just in the process of shutting down my laptop and putting it aside for the evening. My husband poured me a glass of red, and set it on the table. I reached for it to taste the first sip - and promptly spilled the entire glass over the keyboard and screen of my fairly new Mac.

Despite the exploding heart palpitations that appeared with watching the horrific scene, I immediately turned the whole thing upside down so most of the liquid could run from between the keys and onto the table, then I wiped it all down with paper towels, and made sure all was working and I hadn’t shorted it all out. I let out a deep sigh of relief, closed the laptop and set it aside, before joining my husband outside with a fresh glass of beverage, far, far away from any electronic devices.

In the morning, when I powered up my Mac again, I noticed then it wouldn’t take a charge.

“It won’t charge!”

“What do you mean?” asked my poor, confused husband, so I had to explain the entire episode of my carelessness from the night before. He had been outdoors, so missed the big event.

Bless his heart, this whole thing wasn’t met with the angry reaction I thought it may deservedly provoke by carelessly ignoring my own standards. Instead, he just looked down at the phone in his hand. My husband and I began searching up compute repair shops close by. Our luck was not good, so my battery was running low and my options were few. I closed down the Mac in order to conserve the uncharging battery until we could decide on the next action, or where to go to fix a stupidly broken computer. In the meantime, I fired up the old dinosaur of a laptop that I have and used it a bit. It was not fun, but it made me realize how much I appreciate working on my upgrade, and shouldn’t have treated it so poorly.

My husband came home from work in the early evening. We decided to try cleaning the charging ports out ourselves with rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs. It didn’t appear to work. When we plugged it in, it would show up as charging for a millisecond, then quit. So I put it away again, and we did another search for computer repair locations.

This morning, after trying to load my usual sites on my old laptop and phone, and each device not co-operating, I decided to have another crack at the Mac. I plugged the cord into the charging port, and after fidgeting with it a bit, it started charging! I was afraid to move it, but now it is fully charged and appears to be working again. What a relief to be able to use this laptop again!

So my advice to you firstly, is to not have beverages around the computer (although right now I do have coffee, which is usually drunk from a non-tippy cup, not susceptible to spillage), and, secondly, appreciate your devices! Even if they’re lower in quality than we desire, they’re better than going without!

**********************************************************************

Thank you for reading! I hope you can avoid potential tragedy by the sharing of my near-horror story.