Fix-It-Up Chappie

Over the weekend my daughter’s Chromebook stopped turning on. We’ve gotten our money’s worth, having bought it right before the pandemic (fortunate timing, that), but I suspected the issue was only with the battery, having experienced a similar failure mode with other Chromebooks. Fifty bucks, overnight shipping, and fifteen minutes at the kitchen table, and it’s back up and running. Yay!

I usually enjoy trying to repair things. I don’t always succeed (especially if it’s car-related, I leave that to the professionals after a disastrous attempt to patch a radiator leak in an ’87 Honda Civic back in the summer of 2005), but stuff like electronics or minor carpentry things I can usually figure out (not to mention identifying and working around website bugs). There’s something imminently satisfying about learning something new and immediately applying it to bring a tiny bit of order to the entropy.

You may think you don’t know how. And you may be right. But finish the sentence: you don’t know how yet. More than ever before there’s a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips. Engage your curiosity and give it a try. The risk is (usually) minimal and the rewards many.