The Cat Ate My Monitor


Ok, so she didn’t actually *eat* my monitor. It was more like she ate *through* the power cord.

As you may recall, the weather was a little icy here Wednesday morning. Since I work at a school, I had hopes that there would be some sort of delayed opening. At 6:00 am, I turned on the tv and sat through the 87,000 school, daycare, college, and crackhouse delays and closures only to have a cat jump up onto the bed and cross my field of vision just as they finally got to the part of the alphabet I needed to see. Not wanting to have to wait another hour and a half for the T’s to come around again, I decided to check schoolsout.com instead.

I got up and went to the computer, opened up the secretary-style desk and reached out for the power switch on the monitor. Nothing. Confused, I looked at the computer. The 50,000 watt, neon blue power light that I’m fairly sure can be seen from space was shining brightly on the tower, so why wasn’t the monitor coming on?

I crawled under the desk to fiddle with the power cord, thinking that maybe one of my furry little angels (devils) had knocked it loose. No change. I pulled the desk away from the wall so I could get behind it. I checked the plug, and it seemed to be plugged in securely, so I started moving the cord around, thinking there might be a loose connection. Eventually, the little yellow power light came on. I sat down and started to bring up the website, only to have the monitor shut off again. I got behind the desk *again* and fiddled with the wires some more, with no result. After several minutes of this, I got frustrated (did I mention this was shortly after 6:00 am?) and went back to watching the television. Eventually I accepted that I was expected to arrive at work at the usual time, and started to get ready. The monitor problem would have to wait.

Later that evening, I went back to fiddling with the wires. Thinking that maybe the cord was folded over on itself somewhere in the jumble of wires behind the desk, I followed it from the plug up towards where it met the back of the monitor. Halfway up, I found a spot that was not smooth…the casing was torn, as if some one had, oh, I don’t know, *chewed* the cord. I suddenly remembered the previous evening when I had caught Dinah behind the desk playing with the wires. Bad kitty!

As I moved the wire around, it sparked at the torn part. Oops! Apparently bad kitty is trying to burn my house down! I unplugged the monitor until I had a chance to pick up some electrical tape on the way home from work today. For now it’s all patched up and seems to be working all right, but I guess eventually I’ll have to replace that cord! Now, if only I could convince Dinah that she’s a cat, and not a dog!

22 thoughts on “The Cat Ate My Monitor”

  1. Btw… throw the cable out and replace it. Electrical tape is not going to help your situation since it was sparking that means the wire insulation has been chewed through on more than one wire. Wire going directly to ground is a bad thing. Dead short will blow your breaker at best or worse burn it down 😉

  2. They don't seem to be the brightest bulbs in the box, even with electricity running through their little heads. These are the same daredevil teenage kitties that went for a swing on the kitchen light fixture, remember? What's a little shock when you are looking for that next adrenaline buzz, dude.

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