�Uh, yeah.� Her mother shrugged, and looked at the mouse.

With a laugh, Normandy picked up a package and looked at the bottom. �From the looks of things, we �should- be able to use it on our computer. Sure, it�s made to plug into a USB port, but I have the adapter at home so it�ll fit in our p/s2 port. Of course, I�ll have to find it, first.�

Her mother only shook her head. �All right. Then pick it up.�

Normandy simply grinned and took the mouse, heading to the checkout at Staples. Finally, she was getting a new mouse. It was an optical mouse and wireless. It was definitely going to be great, or so she thought.

Once they came home, Normandy set it aside for the time being while she hunted around, looking for that adapter. She knew where it was located, on the end of the old optical mouse that for some reason had stopped working months ago. Anyway, the only real problem was finding where she had left it. It had to be somewhere beneath the mass of papers and junk on the top of the computer desk. Or at least, that�s where she remembered leaving it last.

So, after six days of searching, she finally found it. The moment of truth had arrived. Taking the adapter off the old one, she stuck it into the new mouse. After that, Normandy shut down her computer and removed the old mouse. Time seemed to stand still while she plugged in the new one and turned on the computer.

The yearning of her body for oxygen forced her to breathe. Yes, Normandy had been holding her breath and didn�t even realize it. After what seemed to be an eternity, the computer had fully booted and there stood the screen. Carefully she reached out, placing her hand upon the new mouse and moved it.

Nothing. There was not one single movement of the cursor upon the screen. �God damn it!� She screamed, using all of her reserve to hold herself back. At that moment, there was nothing Normandy would have liked better to do than pick up that mouse and throw it across the room. That, or open the front door and heave the computer out into the snow.

Perhaps she had overlooked something. With that in mind, she tried again� and again. It just wouldn�t work. No matter how hard Normandy tried and no matter what she did, she could not get the mouse to work. It had to be a problem with the computer. There was no other explanation.

Maybe that explains why the other mouse suddenly stopped working as well. It had worked fine on the computer before the newest one, but once it had been attached to the new one, it had mysteriously stopped working only after a week or so. Of course, she had blamed her mother at first� but now it became oh so clear. Perhaps it was the processor. Maybe the processor just couldn�t handle the software needed to run the mouse. Or maybe it wasn�t good enough. It was hard to say.

With a defeated sigh, Normandy packed the wonderful wireless optical mouse back into its package and headed off to Staples. It had only been six short days, but a lifetime of possibilities. Oh how she would have loved to once again have a good, reliable working mouse. Sometimes things are just not fair.

After returning the mouse, she headed back home with a mixture of feelings. Resentment, defeat, and even hate where among them. The resentment was for those who had a good working mouse, even if it wasn�t optical. As long as it had a scrollball, she resented those people. The defeat was because she had worked so long saving up money for another optical mouse� only to finally buy one and find out it didn�t work with her computer. And the hate� the hate was directed towards her father. She held him to blame.

Why? Because he was the one who bought the computer in the first place. A guy he works with builds them. So, instead of listening to Normandy, she listened to the guy he works with. When she said she wanted Windows NT as the platform, the guy had said Windows NT would be too hard to figure out for the rest. So, her father had went with Windows Millenium Edition. Needless to say, he didn�t listen to her at all. He got what the guy thought would be best.

But the story doesn�t end there. Oh, no. It�s a continuing struggle every day between Normandy and the piece of shit computer that sits in the den of the house. Nobody in the family likes it, but they�re stuck with it. All it ever does is perform illegal operations, freeze up, or other things like that. And one cannot forget, it�s very hard to get a game to run. If you do manage to, it�s usually really slow with bad sound and graphics.