We were playing MineClone 2 in the living room, as we often do these evenings. I was tidying up the farm, and A+ was impatiently waiting for me to finish because she wanted to pretend to be the village witch and trade some potions for emeralds. She tried to clamber over me to get to the other side, and she tripped on my Lenovo X220T laptop's screen.

The screen glitched solid blue and didn't go back to normal even after I rebooted. Aaaah! Big feelings! I took a few deep breaths. A+ immediately became defensive, blaming me angrily for having the laptop there in the first place. (It was on my lap! I was sitting on the couch!) I took a few more deep breaths. I reminded myself that this is precisely the reason I have an "oops" fund, and that taking out my frustration on her wouldn't solve the problem. I also reminded myself that I didn't have to freak out about her not apologizing. First things first. I SSHed in and started another backup, took a few more breaths, and thought about things.

So the screen was probably broken. I still had lots of options. I could use it with an external monitor. I could swap the SSD into the other X220T, the one with the slightly broken screen (I had stepped on it during the sleep-deprived days of early parenting) and the wobbly power input that tended to lose contact. When my laptop screen glitched dim in university, that got me to learn more about Emacspeak and I ended up making that the basis for my senior project; perhaps this was another opportunity along those lines.

If it was unrecoverable, I could buy another computer, as I've been meaning to upgrade. Still can't have nice things, obviously, so probably the Lenovo T480 for its upgradability. T480s seem to be selling from between CAD 300-400 in our area. I've been waffling on upgrading my computer for a few years now, so that might be a good option.

It was already quite late at night, and I decided not to spend too much more time on it. Things would be clearer with more sleep and more space.

The next day, W- and A+ gave me enough space in the morning to disassemble the X220T following the service manual, down to the LCD panel and LCD cable. I disconnected and reconnected every component, and then I turned the computer on again. It worked, hooray! And I only had three screws left over. (Whoops! That's what I get for not following the service manual closely on the way back up, and not using lots of labelled containers for sorting the different screws for each steps.)

I'm glad about how it all worked out. I'm glad I didn't lose my cool and that I didn't catastrophize either the accident or A+'s response to it. This was the most I'd disassembled my laptop so far, which was pretty neat especially since I managed to get it working again. And it works, which means I might be able to procrastinate deciding on a new computer for another couple of years.

Hooray for this X220, and for learning how to be a better parent!