Day of Domain, 32nd of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Don't you just love it when the simplest of tasks becomes increasingly and unnecessarily complicated?

By your calendar, today is the First of February. The long relentless January is finally over. It's also the First of February to my creditors, and I've set aside the first day of each month to pay my bills and manage my finances. Simple task, right? I've been doing it every 1st for at least 10 years now, probably longer.

But while navigating through the various web sites to fulfill my obligations, all of a sudden the cursor on my screen disappeared. Weird, right? Rebooted the computer and turned the mouse off and then back on again, and still no cursor. Without a way to communicate with the machine, the computer was unworkable.

Batteries. The mouse must need new batteries, I figured. I couldn't even remember the last time I changed them. And it turns out I was correct - the battery in the mouse was corroded, and the anodes were coated with a white powder. I tried my best to clean off the terminals in the mouse and inserted a new battery, but still no cursor appeared on the screen. 

I've seen enough corroded batteries in old flashlights and laser pointers to know that once that white powder appears, the device is essentially fried. I needed to get a new mouse to pay the month's bills.

The trip to Office Depot isn't a big deal, but Saturday traffic on Howell Mill Road is a nightmare, with weekend shoppers gridlocking the streets. There's about six traffic lights between home and the Depot, and each and every one of them had to cycle twice before I could get through. But get through I finally did, bought a new Logitech cordless keyboard and mouse  (the old keyboard was fine, but it's just a matter of time), and returned home.

But when I got back, the USB interface for the cordless devices wasn't in the box. The box was taped up - factory sealed I had assumed - but I looked over and under every piece of cardboard packaging in the box and there was no USB thingie. Without that, the keyboard and mouse are useless, so it was back to Office Depot.

The traffic wasn't any better, but now I was more frustrated with the missing component that I was with the Saturday shoppers. I got back to the Depot and the clerks were reasonably accommodating about my complaint, but I had to refund my original purchase and buy a new keyboard and mouse rather than just swap out for a new one at the store. No worries, though, and I did have the clerk open the box in the store before I left to make sure the USB pin was in there (it was).

More traffic driving back home again.

As I unpacked the second package, I noticed that both the keyboard and mouse were individually wrapped in plastic that was absent in the first box. Also, there were those little plastic prophylactic tags around the batteries that weren't present in the earlier package. Someone somewhere along the way must have opened my original purchase, failed to put the USB dongle back inside, but taped up the box anyway. Frustrating. 

Anyway, over an hour and two trips to Office Depot later, not including the time spent trying to figure out what was wrong in the first place, the cursor reappeared on my computer screen and I paid my bills. 

It didn't need to be that complicated, though.