"Everything I own, something goes wrong with it."
"You want to know what happened this morning? At like 6:00am my window opened itself. No, I'm serious. It opened and starting sucking my blinds out the window. Now there's three missing. It was crazy. I woke up and my whole window was flapping around."
"I walk into this place, it's like a haircutting place. It's lunchtime and they have this big freakin' pizza. The lady cutting my hair is a big lady and she was really hungry. Her co-workers had this pizza in a room where she could see it, and she was watching the pizza and not my hair. She cut my hair in about 2 minutes and got pissed when I had to take time to write out a check."
Our hero went to Wall Mart to get an answering machine. While there, he saw a phone that he really wanted in the display case. He looked for a box with the phone and couldn't find one. He got an employee to assist him and that employee had to find another employee after being unsuccessful at finding the phone. The second employee used the stock computer and got a match. The box they brought out was a similar phone, but it wasn't the phone that Our Hero wanted. He asked if he could have the display model in the same box, and they said "OK." Of course now the box didn't match the phone within. He took the phone home and plugged it in. It began to get really hot and it "smelled like something was burning. I unplugged it." Our Hero proceeded to take the phone back to Wall Mart. They said that he hadn't bought it from there because the box didn't match the phone. They couldn't find the person that had sold it because the number on the receipt was that of a worker who had quit. Eventually, Our Hero spotted the cashier and he was able to exchange the phone for the model that was originally in he box. It turns out that the model he first purchased was never stocked by Wal Mart. They had no idea where it had come from.
Our hero got to the airport and immediately, a "beastly" lady told him that his flight was cancelled. She put him on standby for a flight that was supposed to leave in 20 minutes. Two of the group of four that he was with were allowed on he plane, two were not. Our Hero ended up staying in the airport. Three (3) hours later, his next flight was cancelled as well. The beastly lady was confronted again and she decided that she would put Our Hero on a different carrier. She was unable to get the computers to work, so she wrote on the TWA ticket with a pen, writing 'American flight 234 to Chicago'. Furthermore, she said that she would put him on a Uninted flight out of Chicago. "I think she was just trying to get rid of us" The American terminal was on the far end of the airport from the Uninted terminal, so he had to run outside in the rain to make his flight. The American attendant said that he could not get on the plane without his luggage, which of course was already in the air in a different plane. Finally, he reached Chicago and had only five minutes to get across the entire airport for his connecting flight. He was not allowed on this plane because his tickets were written in ink and had the incorrect information on them (courtesy of the beast). After awhile, some 19-year-old Uninted lackey led him onto the plane *without a ticket*. As it turns out, his original plane out of Cedar Rapids ran off the runway and crashed, "so either way, I was screwed."
Our Hero had a memo he needed to distribute to about 20 people. He printed it out on his computer and brought it to the library to have it photocopied. The circulation attendant, being the brilliant person that circulation attendants always are, recommended that he put it on a disc and have it printed on the laser printers because that would be cheaper. So he went back home and put the memo on disc and broght it back to the library. After printing out 20 copies, Our Hero noticed that they were all blank. So he checked the network and printer setup and reprinted another 20 blank sheets. Giving up, he returned back to his room to get the original memo. He brought this back to the library again and began confronting the photocopier. Half-way through the process, it ran out of paper. So he tried the other copier. This one (miraculously) finished the job, but then proceeded to spit out an endless stream of copies. He ran screaming into the sunset pulling out his hair.
Our hero attended a dance and was immediately smitten by a beautiful prosepective student, whom he proceeded to 'mack' on. Regularly regarded as a 'pimp daddy,' Our Hero was seen leaving the dance, prospee in tow. However, his reappearance about 15 minutes later told the sad tale of the prospee's evil host student interveining.
"The zipper just ripped apart. I knew it was going to happen."
"You wind its ear up and its supposed to walk, but it doesn't walk anymore. I'm so sad because it used to work." Mr Potato Head has seen better days.
The wristwatch owned and worn by Our Hero is non-functional. It was reported that it was scratched, though Our Hero disagrees with that description, "It's not really a scratch. It looks like I hit it on something. Like it goes all the way through. If it rains or something and just a little bit of water gets in there, I don't know..." The scratch was verified to exist by Beth Sheldon and Mouser. Mouser commented the following, "Yeah, it's scratched all right. You can see the scratch clearly at some angles. I think it's right over the '3' or thereabouts." Our Hero added, "The band is broken too. And it's not that old either." This comment was made after noticing that the leather of the band had small cracks in it.
Our Hero has been anxiously awaiting an important package for some time now, "2 day priority mail. It hasn't come yet, and they sent it monday. My mail never comes." This adds some anxiety to the whole situation concerning the broken printer (see episode 16), which was mailed away weeks ago by the same postal service.
"Every single mechanical pencil I buy breaks. All of my erasers are missing too."
The desk lamp that came installed as part of the dorm room now occupied by Our Hero is non-functional. He recalls the final days before he was forced to unplug the damn thing forever, "It would turn on in the middle of the night, it would just turn itself on."
Our Hero's $10 halogen lamp from Target was non-functional on arrival. He was prepared to buy a new one until Mouser forced him to fix it (which, incidentally, took about five minutes - a problem with a bad wire splice).
Someone (John Kirk and Mouser) seems to have sabatoged Our Hero's stuffed soccer ball. It has a small hole in the seam. Our Hero had the following to say on the issue: "There's a hole in my stuffed soccer ball; I couldn't believe it. Also, my little stuffed ball (the green one) has a hole in it. I don't know how that one got a hole in it. I had to fill out a credit card application to get the stupid ball too."
The speakers on Our Hero's computer have begun to pick up radio stations. He reports that they never did it before he came to Iowa, and in fact, they never did it for the first two weeks that he was here. Even with this amazing reception capability, Our Hero regretfully informs us that the speakers do not pick up the campus radio station, KCOE.
"My window is broken; it snows inside."
The HP Inkjet printer hooked up to the latest of Our Hero's many non-functional computers (see Episodes 11, 12) is non-functional. "It didn't print right. It like smeared all the words, and the people on the phone had me take it apart and clean every little piece. I had to pay for the whole call and it still didn't work." The streaked characters were visable, as verified by Mouser.
"My tape deck on my stereo won't record. Well it records, but it doesn't record right. If you tape from one tape to another, it's like a really crappy recording."
In response to episode 13, Our Hero purchases a new cordless phone. This phone doesn't work properly either due to a low battery and an antenna that was "broken." Our Hero commented, "I screwed in the antenna and it broke. Plus sometimes the security system doesn't work. It would beep at you and then the phone would turn off." The phone was donated to Mouser and a new one was purchased. Miraculously, this new phone has not yet had a problem. Mouser bought a new battery for the old phone and it works like a charm.
The phone in Our Hero's dorm room was non-functional. The earpiece wasn't working right. "If you really really listened, you could hear people, but just barley. It didn't work, it was crazy!"
Our Hero's mouse is non-functional. The left button doesn't work. He says, "It was working and then I left the room and it stopped working. It mysteriously broke."
Our Hero's latest new computer, a P166 tower, is non-functional. His email "doesn't work," and he swears that the computer is adding files. "It added like four things, and I have no idea where they came from."
When Our Hero put batteries in the remote control for his new TV, they leaked acid all over it and it turned all white. The story doesn't end there, however. "somehow it flew through the air and hit the wall. Now it still kinda works, but you really have to hit the buttons to get it to work."
The backpack of Our Hero is totally broken. He recounts the tale of its demise, "The zipper ripped, like right along the seam of the zipper. I don't know why I broke that, I think I had too much crap in it."
"It's a nitestand actually, but it's part of my desk. I was standing on it to hang something on the wall because I'm really short. And then it just broke. Now I put my TV on it."
The speakers to Our Hero's portable CD player are non-functional. He explains, "...but that's because I dropped them off the elevator. Actually, I think they still work but they don't work right. They work sometimes if you shake them."
The first day Our Hero had his new TV, he broke the antenna off of the top. To this day, it is still not fixed.
After being given another computer as a gift, Our Hero runs into trouble once again. The computer was, in his words, "retarded." Our Hero explains, "I erased something. And no one could fix it. My step-dad couldn't even fix it. So I gave it to my dad and now it sits in the basement."
"The axles on my car have to be changed. I'm not sure what's wrong with them. One of the brand new tires has this huge tear in it. It's not all the way through, but it almost is. So... New tires too. Oh, and my speakers are blown out."
"My suitcase broke. It's like cut. It went through the airport and it got cut. The strap is broken too. I put the strap on and it snapped right off."
The horn on the Renault driven by Our Hero is non-functional. Our Hero had the following comments on this situation, "Someone else used it and now it doesn't work; I think they broke it. Actually, it works but when you push it, it makes this awful noise and I don't like it."
Our Hero is shown in his room with the upright piano that his parents gave to him. He is throwing a tennis ball around with some friends. Someone other than Our Hero throws the tennis ball haphazzardly and another person who is not Our Hero fails to catch the ball, allowing it to hurtle into the piano and break it.
After recieving a new computer as a gift (It was a 286, but at the time it was top of the line), Our Hero takes some of the components out of the box and then returns them quickly to the box and puts it in his closet. The box is still in the closet to this day, the 286 never having been turned on.  back to mouser.org |