The last two days, I've been developing a detailed cost opinion for an attorney client for use in a property-damages case (we're representing the defendant). All of my calculations, tabulations and prognostications were recorded into one big Excel spreadsheet, and totaled up to almost $900,000.

It was literally 16 hours of work, and when I finished I SAVED the document (I'm no fool), called my client, and arranged a meeting for first thing tomorrow morning.

Well, funny thing. When I hung up the phone, I looked at the computer screen and the spreadsheet was . . . gone. The Excel program was still running, but where there had been the workbook, there was now just a field of grey.

Keeping Excel open, I went to "My Recent Documents" and clicked on the file name, and still saw nothing but grey. I closed Excel, rebooted my computer, went through Windows Explorer to recover the spreadsheet, and . . . grey.

Fuck. All my work was gone, and there was no way that I could reproduce all of the myriad calculations and cost opinions in time for the meeting tomorrow.

I called the IT department, but they were all geared up for an accounting system upgrade and couldn't be bothered about some old man in Atlanta who couldn't find his document.

I asked one of the tech-savvy young people in my office to take a look, and she agreed that it was about the damnedest thing she ever saw.

When it became apparent that I either had to try to reproduce the last two day's work by pulling an all-nighter or cancel tomorrow's meeting, I got so angry I literally punched the wall - and to my surprise actually broke through the plasterboard.

But meanwhile, as the tech-savvy young person was pecking away at my computer trying to find a backup somewhere in memory, I began dialing the client to cancel the meeting, racking my brain to think of an alibi other than "your consultant is a moron." But just before I got through to him, the t.s.y.p. had a breakthrough at my computer, and found the problem: I had somehow saved the file as a "hidden" workbook.

Oops.

The data were all recovered, the spreadsheet restored, and tomorrow's meeting is still on.

Now I have to think of a way to explain the hole in my office wall.