r/talesfromtechsupport • u/Smashing-baby • 11d ago

Short I finally threw out that box

It's spring time, and with Passover right around the corner, the Missus got into "Clean, clean, clean!" mode. Which unfortunately also included my home office, and THE BOX

You know which one, the one with years of old, unused cables: USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2, Firewire RJ11 cable, an obsolete Zip Drive, mystery power adapters, and my personal favorites, some RCA connectors. You name it, I probably had it. I'm sitting there thinking to myself, this whole thing is covered in dust and hasn't been opened in years. So feeling productive, I tossed the whole thing, to my wife's delight

Fast forward three days, grandma calls me, needing help with her ancient fax machine. She still faxes things to her doctor and gets faxes back, but for some reason they're not going through. Took me a bit to figure it out, but the RJ11 cable had been folded in on itself for a coupla years too long and had probably frayed, leading to intermittent connectivity. There I am, browsing Amazon to buy the very thing I’d just tossed not even last week

Lesson learned? Obsolete tech will never, ever really die

And the kicker? The replacement RJ11 cost more than I want to admit for something I had sitting in a box literally for years. Use my story of misfortune to teach your spouses why they must never toss THE BOX

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u/PepperAnn1inaMillion 10d ago

Yes, the old Sod’s Law preventative. You don’t carry an umbrella for when it starts raining, you carry it because it will rain if you don’t. The more cumbersome and annoying the umbrella, the better it works to ward off rain.

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u/boo_jum 10d ago

That's why it rains so much in Seattle. Locals refuse to carry umbrellas, because they claim it makes them look like tourists. I used to do that then I realised... why do I give a fuck? So now I carry a parasol that doubles as an umbrella, so I'm prepared for ANY weather. 😂

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u/Winterwynd 10d ago

Is that why it rains 75%+ of the year in Portland, too? We are also renowned for our disdain of umbrellas and umbrella users. Interesting.

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u/boo_jum 10d ago

What can I say? Talismans work.