... because you might hit a bump and put your multiple tips in a drawer.

I wasn't all that frantic about the email sent at 3:45pm today from Expedia, which I read at 6:30pm this evening, saying "your flight tomorrow has been canceled, please contact us immediately." I figured, they owed it to me to find another flight that was fairly convenient, and after 2 hours on the phone with them, they did. It was a little nerve wracking, sure, but aside from the fact that I might miss my oldest friend's wedding, I really wasn't too broken up about dropping 18 hours in the air and 4 plane changes over the span of 3.67 days from my plan this week.

MUCH more nerve-wracking was the mystery of the alleged "multiple tips." I was talking with a friend on Saturday about the impending 18 hours in the air and my lack of a laptop to do some work, or more importantly, catch up on Netflix. Yesterday it occurred to me that other options existed, so I went to Best Buy to check out portable DVD players. Surely they would be cheaper than, but just as useful as, a laptop for this purpose.

I succumbed, but opted for the cheapest one (life span 2.5 hours), and bought a supplemental battery (life span 3.0 hours), and the price equaled out to a stand-alone device with 3.5 hours of life span so it felt like a good deal. I figured I would mainly be using this combination of devices on the trip home, and 5 hours would be just about right.

So I got home last night, opened a bottle of wine, unpacked my toys and started to charge them. A couple glasses of wine and lots of TV later, I went to bed.

This morning I was looking at the supplemental battery and trying to figure out how the hell it plugged into the DVD player. The cable plug looked nothing like the input for the DVD player, so I pulled the battery package out of the trash and noticed that it allegedly came with "five exchangeable tips" which would plug into any/all DVD players. I had no recollection of seeing such "tips" so at lunch I took the battery back to Best Buy to complain.

They were insistent that the "tips" came with the battery, and perhaps I had accidentally thrown them away with the packaging? It seemed feasible, so when I got home tonight after taking care of the 2 hour phone call I searched the trash and all other random packaging from the purchase for these alleged "tips." No luck.

I was three seconds from heading out the door to Best Buy to cause a ruckus, when it occurred to me to check my "I don't know what this is for but I should probably keep it so I will toss it in here for now" drawer, which mostly contains extra bolts and screws from Ikea purchases but also an occasional technological gadget. So I checked.

Lo and behold, there were the multiple tips! And one of them fits perfectly into the DVD player! Which means that during some portion of the 18 hours of flight time, I can finally watch the Battlestar Gallactica miniseries AND the other two Netflix movies I've been sitting on!

And never again shall I drink wine while opening technology. Youngsters, learn from the errors of my ways.