Once upon a midnight dreary,
Fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high
And wasted paper on the floor,
Looking for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand,
I then invoked the SAVE command,
But got instead a reprimand:
It read, "Abort, Retry, Ignore." |
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| Was this some occult illusion?
Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself
Had never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed my options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, I must now adopt one:
Choose Abort, Retry, Ignore. |
|
| With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending,
Hoping all will be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key --
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore." |
  
|
| I tried to catch the chips off-guard --
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards.
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation
Trying random combinations;
Still there came the incantation:
Choose: Abort, Retry, Ignore. |
 |
| There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away
And paced across the office floor.
And then I saw an awful sight:
A bold and blinding flash of light --
A lightning bolt had cut the night
And shook me to my very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die;
"Oh no -- my database, I cried."
I thought I heard a voice reply,
"You'll see your data Nevermore..." |
 |
| To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes.
I bet it goes to Heaven
Where the angels have it stored,
But as for productivity, well --
I fear that it goes straight to Hell,
And that's the tale I have to tell. |
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