'You have performed an illegal function...'

All the people moaning about trees down in their yards have nothing on those of us who have to use @#$%^& computers to make a living!

While it is sad that the huge oak grandpa planted on the day you were born is suddenly and wantonly ripped out of the ground and making a huge dent in the workshop, it's nothing compared to having a computer hard drive fried by lightning.

Take my word for it. I swear it's worse!

There is, of course, a surge protector on this plastic bucket of circuits, but with a storm like the one last week, there simply was too much surge in those jagged bolts from out of the black sky.

The hard drive is fried, and the nerd who fixes such things can't get here for two days -- trees down across the road where he lives. (Odd how many computer gurus live in the woods!)

When he did arrive, he checked things out and immediately got on a cell phone.

The phone conversation went on and on, parts being named, model numbers being read, serial numbers being read...

All of it had to be done two or three times, of course. Nobody ever gets all those numbers right the first time through.

The needed part, about the size of a box of light bulbs, won't be here for four days.

It will arrive on deadline day, which is an entire day of quiet desperation, a day when you've got to be fast but accurate, too. The two hardly ever go hand in hand.

So this is the third edition of the paper in which I'm working on a borrowed computer, one that has the idiosyncrasies of the previous user built in.

It's nearly impossible to figure out where anything is. There's a folder labeled simply "Stuff" and "Metro," which, when opened, is a list of other folders with similar names. Might be interesting, but I won't have time to open them this year.

All of it takes up memory, but I neither dare open any of it (the folders have very strange names!) nor throw any of it into the trash. Never know when the owner might come back with a stick of dynamite and ask where the stuff is.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. The storm-caused crash took out my computer (where I know what stuff means) in the very week when two "extras" are due to the printer. One is a 60-page book and the other is a 26-page book.

The 26-page book doesn't sound as bad as the 60-page one, but if you've typed (or "composed") nothing to fill it, it might as well be 2,600 pages. The stress level's the same.

Two of us huddled around the one computer we could trust on Saturday. After much gnashing of teeth and generally getting on each other's nerves, we figured out that what was wrong with the old book (our guide) was that the same two reams of legal gobbledygook had been repeated, leaving us with a lot more space to fill with something meaningful.

At times like this, it's tempting to just put both of the long, slightly descriptive laws in the new book, but sure as you do that, somebody with absolutely nothing to do reads both of them and calls in to complain about killing so many trees to make all this paper.

And no writer worth his salt would do that and not feel awfully guilty about it. I'm the salty type. Aren't you glad you have a chainsaw? Wish I had one...

By the time it was time to go cover the Oldtime Fiddler's Contest (one that somehow got behind and didn't finish until midnight!), we had at least gotten all the copy into the 60-page book.

But it was just there; it had to be tweaked to make it as readable as possible, and pictures had to be added in those little empty squares we'd left for them.

Both things take more time than anyone who hasn't done it can imagine. Computers do things quickly, but it takes about 40 slow steps to make them do it. They don't say thank you , either.

It was on Sunday that I discovered the repeat of the same legal tome, which, when deleted, created a lot of white space.

But since the rest of the book was chained to bleed over into the next page in order, there doesn't seem to be any way to back it up. It's true that you can't push a chain, even on a computer

Still bleary-eyed from too many jig dancers, too many versions of "Soldier's Joy" and "Kentucky Waltz, " and too little sleep with trying to remember what I wasn't supposed to forget, I went at it again Sunday morning.

It was after the spell-check of the nearly 28,000 words in the book, that the one computer we trusted became untrustworthy.

After saving the spell-checked copy, it told me in one of the most annoying ways, that there wasn't enough memory to re-open that section of the book.

The 26-page book is waiting in the wings, too, expecting the same precision treatment.

And one of the tougher things to deal with when you're in a mess like this one are all the "helpful people" who drift in to say things like "not to worry; it'll all turn out fine..."

Well, it won't turn out fine unless somebody's willing to make it do that by losing a lot more sleep and staring at the screen for a lot longer than the original plan.

So, here it is another day, the day the new box was supposed to arrive. The sun's heading toward the trees that are left west of town, but the computer guru hasn't made an appearance.

Anyway, all of it is enough to make you wonder if this isn't payback for something I've done in the past that's just now catching up with me. No, that kind of thing is for people who think they were once Abraham Lincoln in a previous life. Good only if you do better in a later life.

It must have been a bad box of film or it got too hot in the delivery truck, but when I put it into the camera Saturday night, each 24-frame roll recorded pictures you see elsewhere in this edition, but each roll only let me get to 14 pictures before it tripped the rewind button. Automatic is ignorant.

So, here I sit, thinking that all of it somehow has to come together in two days. And none of the hazards and frustrations leading up to it can show.

But then, this has to be written, too. And there's a deadline for that as well. In the thick of all this the dead computer should come to life. Where's my stuff?

So, when you're out there with your chainsaw making little trees out of big ones, I'll think of you.

No trees fell on me, and although my electricity stumbled a bit during the worst of the hurricane (Wind speeds made it official.), I came through all that with no extra work to do.

Don't feel put upon when you have to take the chain in to be sharpened. Remember this: At least you'll know when you're done! -- Royce Williams

(Editor's Note: The cartoon of me you usually see with this column is stored on my wounded computer, and I don't know whether the new box will recognize me or not. Anyway, I've done a search for it here and just got, "Item not found...")