I’m Jamey Stegmaier, and I recently survived for 7 days without the ability to scroll down on my mouse. This is my harrowing story.
It started, as all adventures do, while attempting to scroll down an Excel spreadsheet. One moment numbers were flashing by as I scrolled…and the next, nothing. No movement.
At first I thought it was a temporary glitch–I was so naive back then in my youth. I closed Excel and reopened it. I tried to scroll in a different program, all to no avail. I restarted my computer. I switched out the batteries. I even traveled to Tibet and sought council from a wizened sherpa.
Nothing worked.
To make matters worse, sometimes it did work for the briefest of flashes. I never knew when it would start or stop working, but I couldn’t help but try. Even though the fabric of reality seemed to be unraveling before my eyes, I couldn’t lose hope that the scroll wheel would remember the Before Times.
I started to give up, to surrender. This was my life now. To page down, my mouse had to make the agonizing journey to the scroll bar on the far right of the screen. This required far more energy than the scroll wheel, so I increased my daily caloric intake to 15,000 calories (mostly chocolate). I learned to take micro-naps while transferring to the scroll wheel. I learned to make my own clothes because online shopping was too tedious (and I had burned all of my clothing in protest when the scroll wheel stopped working).
For 7 long days I persisted, still holding onto the fool’s hope that the mouse would regain its original form. Alas, ’tis wasn’t to be. So I bought a new mouse.
I share this story of survival to prove that you can do anything if you believe in yourself. Even the darkest night eventually turns to day. Keep scrolling, my friends. Keep scrolling.
I’m Jamey Stegmaier, and this is my true tale of survival.
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For other true tales of survival, scroll to the bottom of this page.
Ha, wizened sherpa. I thought your ate your sherpa?
Well, there are many sherpas. 🙂
No explicit mention of a loincloth? What happened to all of your duct tape, cat hair, or toothpaste? Overall, this is a wonderful entry–you did exactly what I would have done–save for the loincloth (shakes head sadly to indicate that this could all have ended differently with if only for a loincloth).
I considered the loincloth, and duct tape is a good idea, but I haven’t done one of these entries in a while…I didn’t want to scare off too many people. 🙂
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I taught my fiance about middle clicking to open a new tab and it was like she was awake for the first time.
What is this wizardry you speak of?!
Middle click on a link to open it in a new tab! Shortcut to rightclick > open in a new tab. Do that for 30 years and you’ll easily save a minute of your life.
Oh yes, I do that with the right click. But now I see what you’re saying about clicking on a link using the scroll wheel. That’s awesome!