The F5 Key

This is important for me; both as a parent and as a husband. Prior to both (marriage and kids), my life was ordered, controlled (for the most part) by me. I managed myself and my things. When I left my keys on the desk, I knew the keys would be there the next time I grabbed them. Same for dishes, nail clippers, tissue boxes, the apple slicer, and the TV remote control (all of these my wife will smile at!).

With the introduction of my life partner to my life back in 2004 and more recently my two daughters starting in 2007 and again in 2008, my “orderliness” and “control” has been rapidly eroding. I don’t know why I try so hard or care so much, but I do. I like to know things are not only are going to be where they are left, but also kept in good shape.

My wife will remember when I purchased the first digital camera for the children’s ministry @ Hayward Wesleyan that I wouldn’t let her touch it (because she held it wrong). I have come a long way since then…

…which is where the F5 key comes in:

During Thanksgiving we were spending the day with some friends of ours, and some other friends came over later. They have a 1 year-old that is learning to get around fairly well. We had brought our laptop on the holiday for the girls to watch a movie should the toys we brought run out of allure. While Sari was watching some Disney princess movie, our friends’ daughter pulled herself over to the glossy, moving picture screen (the laptop) and grabbed at the keyboard, pulling a few keys off the keyboard. No worries, right? They are easy to put back on. No harm done. I’ve let some things go. No worries. She ended up pulling a couple more off, but we maneuvered the computer away from her grabbing and things were good.

The next day, however, when I went to open the laptop to power it up for use, I noticed something was a little off: the F5 key was missing! We missed that one! Our friends’ daughter stuck one last grab and pull while none of us were looking, and now our laptop is missing a vital piece of inputting!

I remember thinking in that very moment: “this is okay… this is okay.” The F5 key is not that important anyway, and even if it was, “it’s okay.”

Now, not everything “is okay.” There are some things in life that are worth making sure are kept in good shape and out of the hands of children (or your spouse!), and it takes wisdom to determine those. However, an F5 key? Nope.

How often do we make BIG deals out of F5 keys?

I still do from time to time, you know, make a BIG deal of out little, insignificant things. But hopefully I’m learning (and my kids and my wife are extremely helpful) to let a lot of these kind of things go… like the F5 key.

Epilogue: I thought our F5 key was lost and we would just go on about our computing lives minus this particular input selector. However, as you can see by the picture above, it was kindly returned to us a month later by our hosts from Thanksgiving. Now our computer, along with the F5 key, are whole again!