The Dell Inspiron laptop (“Mini-me”) has been sending phantom keystrokes since we got it… It doesn’t interfere with ordinary document editing, but it renders Alt-Tab useless, makes new windows pop to the back of the stack, and plays havoc with context menus. It wasn’t bad enough to return it immediately, but it’s driving both me and Diana crazy. I don’t have any upcoming presentations now, so it’s finally time to send it in for repair.

Of course, first I have to get past “Lalit” with tech support. Her first action was to point me to a Microsoft Knowledge Base article on System Restore. Here was my terse response:

> This is a hardware problem, not software.  I'm certain of this because
> I was able to reproduce the issue on a live Linux distribution (i.e.
> without Windows running).
>
> Sorry, but performing a system restore won't help.  Please make
> arrangements for us to return the system for repairs.

Sitting in my e-mail this morning was a request for an address to ship the return box to.

I’ve done my time listening to muzak while on hold for techs who don’t know their systems half as well as I do; I’m through messing around.