Creative tinkering

Today while we were at Starbucks, I picked up my daughter’s laptop and the power cord just fell out of it.  After having to replace two Kindles in a week because of power issues, I was not about to replace a third device because my kids can’t figure out how to plug something in and leave it the hell alone.  So I opened it up.

Problematic power receptacle

*Such* a whore...

Unfortunately, the idiots that designed this put a tiny little backstop to keep the receptacle in place.  The problem is that if the power cord gets hit hard enough it breaks and then the receptacle is free to move about as it wants to.  The downside to this is that when you plug in the cord, the receptacle moves away from the plug like a little tease. 

See what I mean?  A little creative thinking and I had lit upon a solution: I just needed to put something in there that was wide enough to prevent the receptacle from moving away from the plug. Now… what to use?  I looked around the room, hoping for some inspiration.  I thought to myself, “Self, what kinds of things can you wedge in there?  Where can I find variable sizes of plastic or metal so I can find something that fits?” 

Gold LEGO to the rescue

Can you guess what that is?  You got it, a LEGO.  See, LEGOs *are* the best things in the world. Unless you step on one.  Then Satan himself envies their sadistic evil. 

Duck tape... Duct tape... whatever.

A little duct tape (hush, I couldn’t find my electrical tape) and we’re all set.  I put it all back together and it worked like a charm.  

Now, though, her laptop is officially a desktop unless we need to actually take it somewhere.  I’m not going to do that again, so she needs to pretty much plug it in and leave it.