Ha! It’s not as dramatic or interesting as I’ve made out, but you can’t blame a girl from creating some suspense right?

Early on a rainy morning in May I found myself in the middle of a real life riddle that bore a funny, although FAR less morbid semblance to that old brain teaser about the man hanging from the ceiling with only a puddle of water beneath him. But in my story the only thing that died had a disc drive…

I was working at home and sleep dazzled, I slumped upstairs. Pushing passed the washing hanging on the line, light was just creeping onto the desk so I didn’t bother with the lamp. Before running downstairs to answer the kettles call I powered on the PC and it purred to life.

Downstairs, tea in hand, I began smelling a nasty chemical burning smell, I ran upward and was hit in the face with smoke, I sprang to pull the plug.

Prying open the computer, I winced, the graphics card was no more – melted and charred beyond recognition. What the hell caused that? The floor under the carcass was wet!

Could the roof have leaked in the rain? It seemed unlikely at the apex of the roof, and there was no water on the desk beside it. Could someone have done a dodgy and spilt a glass of water off the desk through the vent in the top? No glass…did someone conceal the evidence? Suspect profiles began swirling in my head, but, the best I could do was wait until Computer Doctor Dylan returned home to check the crime scene.

We cleared the desk of books, pens, lamp and papers so we could lift the computer off the floor for a closer look. Then we noticed a small wet patch near the corner desk, a perfectly round patch, and floating in it were weird crystals! But still it didn’t twig. Dylan to my horror tasted it…

the water was salty!

We looked inside the computer and saw little salty drops splashed throughout. Well it definitely wasn’t rain water…what could it be? It wasn’t until we were explaining it to our house mate that the mystery was solved. Suddenly her face fell.

“Did you say the water was salty? Umm…is my salt lamp still up there?” Salt lamp? Then we realised that the crystal shaped lamp upstairs was not plastic, it was a giant lump of salt! Sheepishly she noted that it seemed to strangely attract water (just what you want in an electrical device!).

The wet washing, crystals, circular patch on the desk above the computer, it all came together. The water must have dripped over the desk edge into the computer vent. Damn, goodbye insurance money. But if a computer is going to go out, it might as well be out in style like death by salt lamp. Hopefully my photos are still intact somewhere in that salty old motherboard.

Time will tell.

Oh and the parrot mystery? That was a bit more straight forward. Dylan’s mum’s tomatoes had been systematically decimated by some unknown beastie. Well this cheeky little guy was caught red feathered hoeing into the last of the winter tomatoes! He could only be distracted from his gastronomical adventures by cashew nuts…and blundstone boots?!?