The day started out good. Had breakfast. Caught the second 42 bus that came along at the Florida stop because the first was jam-packed with people. Twenty-degree weather really packs a bus in DC. Stood for most of the way until after Dupont Circle, when most of the people usually clear out and I can grab a seat. Stood in line at Starbucks. Tall drip. So good. As I walked to my building, I contemplated the fact that I live in what can arguably be the best city in the US, possibly the world. I've contemplated this fact many times in the last two weeks. Yes, this was all good. Life was good.

But this morning I had an itch to scratch. My monitor was not quite the proper eye-level, and this needed correcting. In all the diagrams of a 'proper monitor eye-level,' it shows the person sitting at the monitor, sitting up straight, and his eyes point directly at the middle of the screen. My eyes pointed to the top of the screen, so most of the time I had to direct my head downward in an uncomfortable tilt. Among other daily chores I was going to do this morning, this monitor-height dilemma would be settled once and for all.

I have a monitor stand that you can adjust the height of by adding plastic building blocks to it. I took the monitor off the stand, added additional blocks, and put the monitor back on the stand. Still to low. I repeated the process. And voila! Just right. I was feeling quite proud of myself when I noticed it. . . . a scratch. Somehow, in moving the monitor I had rubbed my belt-buckle against the side of the flat-screen CRT and now there was this small, almost imperceptible scratch. It seemed harmless enough at first, but because I have a flat-screen, the tiniest of scratches can cause this rainbow-like pixelated effect around the blemish. I soon realized that this was a wretched scratch. One that would no doubt cause considerable pain and heartache.

Had that been there? I started to think maybe it wasn't my fault. No certainly not. If it had been there yesterday I surely would have seen it. I rubbed it with my finger. This scratch, it was persistent, and proud to be a new part of my screen. I began to wonder if it was even a scratch. Could it be something was wrong inside the monitor itself? Maybe some strange shift in the tidal flows had caused this thing to appear on my screen. I reset the monitor. The screen flickered. The scratch remained. Yes, this scratch was not going anywhere. The rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon was spent obsessing about this scratch. Nevermind that I live in this great city. Nevermind that life was good. Nevermind all that mushy romantic bullshit. My new monitor now had a scratch in it. I had caused the scratch through the relatively benign (or so I thought) process of lifting the monitor off the stand, on to the desk, then back on the stand. Twice. I had nobody to blame. But why was this damn thing so sensitive? I've moved dozens of regular (non flat-screen) monitors with much greater recklessness than I had this one, and yet this time I caused this annoying scratch.

'I scratched it with my belt-buckle,' I told my boss.

'I'm not sure I want to know why your belt buckle was that close to the monitor,' he said.

'Brings new meaning to virtual sex, eh?' I said.

Actually, there is nothing sexual going on between my belt buckle and my monitor. They're only passing acquaintances at best and rarely say two words to one another. No, the reason for their proximity was because of a back surgery I had several years ago. I'm always very careful how I lift things. Pressing large heavy items close to the body is the best method of lifting. But, as it turns out, it's also the easiest method for scratching a flat-screen monitor with your belt buckle. Who'd have guessed?

The rest of my day was clouded by this evil scratch. I would begin to forget it, then there it was. Shiny and glaring. It's kind of in the bottom left quadrant of my screen. My eyes fall dead on it as I make my way toward the bottom of an email. Bam! There it is, right between the 's' and the 't' of the word 'last.' Ughh.

And the sad part is there seems to be nothing that will fix such maladies as this, the common flat-screen-CRT scratch. I did manage to find a couple of suggestions, but nothing very promising. One suggestion said to use sandpaper on my entire screen. I found this a rather extreme solution and counter-intuitive to any good sense or reason I'd ever heard in my life. Another suggestion claimed that one could use nose-grease to cover up the scratch. Well, why not? Oddly, the idea didn't ring any bells of caution with my sense of reason, and I'm never very short on nose grease, so what harm could it do? I rubbed my nose with my index finger, then smeared some on the scratch. Then I buffed it clean with a paper towel. Hmm. . . . This did dull it, causing the rainbow effect to lesson . . . a positive step, indeed. But it also smudged my screen a bit, something else I can't stand. So a slight improvement, yes, but not good enough, alas.

Ultimately, I managed to put the scratch out of my mind long enough to get some actual work done . . . but my frame of mind just was not the same. I was off-kilter. Perplexed. Sad and not at all pleased. I now had a scratch, and this scratch was disturbing.

On the 42 back home, after an evening workout, and a walk in the crisp evening air, I again realized that life was good, despite these occasional scratches. That scratch will gall me from now until I throw the monitor in the trash (which won't be anytime soon.) But at least I can always walk away from it now and again. Next time maybe I will be content to leave well-enough alone. Leave the monitor where it is. Or perhaps I will remember to remove my belt buckle. Or not.

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