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I was filing an email when I heard the unmistakable clink of a ring going down an air vent. It reminded me of the opening of Lolita when Humbert Humbert says her name is like “the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps.” The ring hit the metal side of the air vent three times and then went silent. Followed by child’s wail.

“MYYYYYYYY RIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!”

The ChickieNob wears a mood ring that she plays with incessantly.  We bought it for her this fall while we were at the beach because she had mentioned earlier that week that she wanted a mood ring.  And then we were standing in front of a case of mood rings.  So… we bought the mood ring.

We tell her not to take it on and off, but she absentmindedly twists it while she reads.  She was standing near the bookcase, reading while twisting the ring, and it popped off her finger, bounced, unluckily turned sideways, and bounced through the vent grating to its doom.

I took the grating off the vent — it simply pops up off of the carpet — and peered into the gaping maw of the air vent.  There was a lot of dust, a rusty nail, and some dried up spiders.  But no ring.  I shined a light into the passageway but could only see a few inches beyond the mouth of the vent.

At this point, Josh came home and he dragged an unbent wire hanger through the vent, hoping to snag it on the unseen ring and bring it closer to the mouth of the vent.  No luck.  The kids went down in the basement and commented that they could hear the scraping of the hanger in a vent in the ceiling.  What if instead of trying to drag the ring up, we tried to push it down so it would drop through the ceiling?

This required power tools to remove the basement vent grating.  Once we did that, we realized that the vent above, while connected to the vent below, was not a straight shot.  So we placed the grating back on the ceiling and made a plan A, B, and C.

Plan A: Continue trying the hanger method for another 10 minutes.

Plan B: Give up for the time being and go out after dinner to get a temporary ring.  Wear temporary ring until we return to the beach to get another mood ring.  Return home with temporary ring and try “grabbing” the real ring with two-sided tape stuck to the end of the hanger.

Plan C: Something with magnets.  (We didn’t get too far in brainstorming this plan.)

We did Plan A for a bit, and then quit for dinner.  As we were eating, I looked over at the Dyson and wondered if there was any way I could use it in the air vent to suck out the ring.  The neck is long and made of metal, which doesn’t lend itself well for jamming it into the hole.

Still, I tried this after dinner while Josh washed the dishes so we could go out to obtain said temporary ring.  Of course the wand of the vacuum couldn’t be manipulated into the hole, and I almost gave up.  But then I wondered if I could detach the tubing from the neck, keeping the other end still connected to the motor, and snake that tubing down the vent.  Yes, yes, like a possessed woman, I dissected the Dyson and dropped the tubing down the air vent.

It took several tries to get the tubing deep enough into the vent, but after about three minutes, we heard the unmistakable clink of a ring being sucked into a vacuum.  We quickly shut off the motor, and there, nestled in a mound of dust, was the aforementioned mood ring.  Safe and sound.

The ChickieNob cleaned it and stuck it back on her hand, promising she would never take it on and off again.  And she didn’t, for exactly 8 minutes, until I caught her twisting it on and off her little fingers.  We used our newfound not-getting-a-temporary-ring time to get ice cream instead.  All is well that ends well.

Thank you, Dyson, for making such a powerful, easy-to-take-apart vacuum cleaner.  It has caught bugs for me over the years, cleaned my carpets, and, of course, saved rings.  What more could one want from a household product?

Did that title scare you good?  Well listen up, kids, because I’m about to tell you a story that will give you nightmares.

Uh, and hopefully help you if this happens to you.  Or at least get you to make a few quick changes right now that may help you in the future.

So there I am, moving my iTunes library from one computer to another, and I pick up my phone to check my email.

[Aside: The fact that I was moving my iTunes library is not relevant to what happened, but I just want you to know that I was already in a very stressful technology situation.  Okay, and I was actually taking a break from moving my iTunes library and the ChickieNob was using my computer at the time.  But regardless, high stress with technology, get it?]

Inbox was there, happily storing all the emails I needed to return at the end of the day.  And then the inbox was gone.  White screen.  Totally empty.  What a weird glitch.

I closed down the email app and opened it again, expecting to see my inbox back on the screen.  But the inbox was still empty.  I bumped the ChickieNob from my computer and sat down to check my email.  Oh thank G-d my inbox is right there on the screen.  It must be a weird glitch with the phone that will right itself soon.  I’ll just push the refresh button on the computer to be sure.

OH MY G-D THE INBOX IS GONE GONE GONE.

Like gone.

Totally and completely gone.

I am panicking because I keep all sorts of important emails in my inbox plus there are all the emails that I hadn’t answered yet from that day.  I check folders to see if the emails have been archived, but they’re not there.

I remember one of the emails normally kept in my inbox contains a very unusual last name, so I use it as a search term and can’t find it in the account until I navigate down to a little link at the bottom of the page asking if I want to check in the trash.  Yes, Gmail, I want you to check everywhere.  Wherever you put my emails since you clearly know where they are.

And sure enough, that email is in with the thousands of emails in my trash.  I empty my trash every other week, but in between, it fills up with thousands of emails.  So I can find that one email because I can use the last name as the search term, but all those other emails?  I don’t remember their contents exactly.  All I know is that they were in my inbox; not the specifics of their contents.

I mean, could you list every email in your inbox right now?  No?  You just know that you want them, right?  Me too.

*******

Getting them back meant going through the thousands of emails in the trash and sending the right ones back to the inbox.  I hopefully found them all, but in case I didn’t, I moved everything from the trash to a folder for the time being so it won’t be automatically deleted.

Next I starred everything I always wanted to keep in my inbox.  My hope, if this ever happens again, is that I can scan the trash for stars and find all the emails again.  It may not work, but it’s worth a try.  I used two different star colours to differentiate between emails that should be there all the time and emails that are waiting an answer or action.

Lastly, I’ve started scanning and emptying the trash once or twice a day.  I’ve found all sorts of interesting things in there including comment notifications and a few emails I actually want.  So now I’m being super careful with my email and not thinking it’s a given that everything will be where I want it to be.  Oh — and I’ve backed up my email.  Again, it’s not perfect, but if my inbox disappears again, it will give me something to look at as I try to reconstruct my inbox.

This seems like a very common glitch based on Googling results online.  If it happens to you, first check the trash.  But hopefully, if you starred your inbox right now, you can find and restore those emails pretty easily.

That’s your public service announcement for the day.

For years (yes, years), Josh has been telling me to move my iTunes account to a different computer.  It may be because the laptop I housed it on is about three seconds away from dying.  Or the fact that I don’t automatically back up that laptop in the same way that I back up the desktop, ensuring that I will be screwed at some point.  (I like to live on the edge.)

My reason for not moving it is simple: I do not trust technology to work.  I do not trust that by doing X that Y will happen.  The shorter the instructions for completing the task, the greater the chance that it will all go to shit.  I assume that every time I update my software, something will go horribly awry and I will spend hours trying to fix the problem.

But this week, I decided it was time.  I was going to move it all over, sync the phone to the new computer, and live happily ever after.

So we started moving stuff over.  So far so good.  Sure, the playlists didn’t transfer for whatever reason — maybe 5 out of 20 songs made it into each playlist — but those are easy enough to reconstruct.  And certain files seemed to disappear into the ether.  No worries — we’ll just transfer them again.  And it took a looooooong time to move over a large amount of media from one computer to another.  (A note if you do this yourself: It will likely take a few days to move it all over if you do it for a few hours each night.)

And then it came time to sync the phone.  You see, you can back up your phone to multiple computers, but you can only sync with one.  So I had to trust that in syncing with a new computer that it would keep all of the information, apps, and media currently stored on the device.  And I do not trust technology to work for good reason: It often fails.

Sure enough, in syncing with a new computer, I needed to rebuild large portions of my phone.  Most of my music didn’t come over, which is probably fine because I rarely listen to it.  I had to reload movies and books.  Certain apps stopped working properly and I had to reinstall them.  But my photos were there — my most important thing — as well as my written and voice notes.  All in all, it took me a full day to get back to functional.

At least I don’t have to do it again for a while?

I am happy that I’m now syncing with a computer that is automatically backed up, which gives me a safety net.  It needed to happen, and it was going to be a huge time suck no matter when I did it, and even worse if the laptop died without the ability to move the media.  Plus, as a bonus, I sucked it up and also upgraded the software on the phone.  So everything feels fresh and up-to-date, at least for the next 5 minutes until the next iOS release.

Do you trust technology?  Do you update quickly or let things go for weeks out of fear?

Truman has been in our family for 3 years this week.  He’s a little over 3 since he was about 6 weeks when we brought him home, but we don’t have his exact birthday.  He is my furry companion, my little love bucket who begs for a treat every single time I stand up.  He loves back rubs and alfalfa cookies.  Happy birthday, Truman, and we’re so glad you’re here.

Look at that face!  Isn’t that pure love?  I mean, sure, he sort of looks like he’s just enduring me and waiting for me to leave him alone so he can go back to licking himself clean.  But isn’t he so cute!

Who is telling your story?  Is it you, on your blog?  Are you controlling the narrative on your social media feeds, presenting the you you want the rest of the world to see?  Is it someone else, writing about you?  Is no one telling your story?  Does it matter if stories are told if they’re going to be forgotten a generation or two later regardless?

Sit with that for a moment.

I am really loving this month’s BlogHer Writing Lab theme, especially on the heels of Hamilton and this idea of the legacy you leave behind.  What will you be remembered for?  How will your close friends and family describe your life?  How will a stranger describe your life?  Can we really control the narrative?  I’m not sure.

Image: Bruce Guenter via Flickr

*******

A friend and I were recently talking about how much of your story you tell other people.  By not telling something, are you sending the message that you’re ashamed of that aspect of your life or trying to sweep it under the rug?

There is a lot I don’t tell you.  Some of it is because it’s boring.  I spend about 40% of my waking hours worrying.  Do you really want to hear my looping anxiety?  I feel like you get enough of it organically without having me subject you to the full tidal wave of my neuroses.  Probably 2% of my waking hours is spent seething with jealousy.  It doesn’t really make for good blog fodder.  5% of my waking hours is spent pestering the people in this house with various “what ifs,” contemplating getting a dog, and reading about new video games.

I just don’t lead that exciting a life.  I don’t tell you about a large chunk of it because I don’t want to put you to sleep.

Some of it is just to have a delineation between inner life and outer life, inside the house and outside the house.  There needs to be a reason to be close to another person, and part of that comes from being let into an inner circle.  I’m in Josh’s inner circle.  He’s in mine.  He should therefore get more than me than the general world.  And while there are friends that I’ve made through this blog, there are also thousands of silent readers who shouldn’t get as much of me as people I converse with off-blog.

I described it to my friend as determining who is important to you and therefore wants to know you, as opposed to who just wants to know something for the sake of knowing it and not to be closer to you:

I think of all the moments that happen in my day that I don’t feel guilty not sharing with the world.  I’m not doing so to be deceptive or to lie or to pretend otherwise.  It’s just that it’s also important to get to decide what we share and what we don’t.  I don’t know.  I would bet that you tell the story to the people who are important.  Everyone else is important in THEIR story, but they’re not important in YOUR story, therefore they don’t get all the pages.

I guess I don’t see nefarious reasons for only getting part of the story when it comes to the online world.  I assume I’m only getting part of your story.  I assume there are people closer to you — either in physical proximity or emotional connection — who get more of it.

*******

The twins are nearing an age where they could write about me if they wished.  They certainly have the skills, though I don’t think they see me as interesting subject matter.  I am super interested in them, and they are super interested in me being interested in them.  But I’m only mildly interesting in my own right.  I am like a 3 on the interesting scale.

I’ve been very circumspect when writing about them because I knew this day would arrive.  When they would want to write about their own lives and I would be a character in their story.  How would they portray me?  A screechy woman who is always telling them to clean their room?  A slightly agoraphobic woman who bleaches the sink and vacuums daily?  An attentive woman who still reads to them and is willing to answer any question?  A silly woman who often tells them to drop everything so we can go play video games?  Because they’re all true, to an extent.  I am a screechy, agoraphobic, attentive, silly woman at times.

Have you thought about that?  That the people you write about — even in a loving way — can turn around and write about you, too?  Isn’t it sobering to think that when that happens, you won’t be controlling the narrative.  But you’ll have to live it, the way the world sees you, through someone else’s eyes.

*******

Maybe that is the best reason to keep a blog.  Tell or be told.

So are you telling your story?  And what is the narrative?