Several days ago we headed off with a full van and kids in tow to Ohio to see Laura's extended family and to transfer some belongings that we'd been storing here to family heading back to Texas. But first we made a quick detour to the neighborhood post office to mail off some packages. I dashed into the PO, did my business and headed back to the car where I settled into my seat and took out my Kindle Fire, ready to lose myself in a good book. Yikes! The Fire appeared to be as dead as a doornail, even though it had worked fine and had almost a full charge just the night before.
"Stop," I yelled in a panic. "We have to swing back by the house so I can get another Kindle. There's no way I'm making a long car trip without something to read."
We backtracked and I ran into the house, grabbed my Kindle Touch and its charger and dashed back to the van and off we went. The Touch was working perfectly.
When we got to our destination and had brought everything into the house, I was griping about the Fire not working and gave it another try and lo and behold, it worked perfectly. What in the world?
The next day before we headed off to the next family's home, I checked out my Kindle Fire once again and it was working fine. Great!
We carried our luggage out to the car, got in and started off. I pulled out the Fire and took it out of "sleep" mode. What in the world? Again it was blank and appeared to be dead as a doornail. I was beginning to think that just the slightest bit of cold temps were causing it to lose its charge. Back I went to my trusty Kindle Touch.
At the next house, we unpacked and I visited with folks for awhile and then thought to check the Kindle Fire. Voila! It turned on without a hitch. What was happening? It worked fine that night and yet again, passed a quick test the following morning. This time, I put it in my purse and carried it out to the car that way, thinking it would stay warmer in there, rather than in a computer bag.
We hopped in the car, waved our goodbyes and started off for home. I took some sips of coffee, slipped off my shoes and pulled out the Kindle Fire. Yup, you guessed it. Nothing, nada, zilch! Now I was seriously getting perturbed. I envisioned having to call up Amazon Tech Services and go over the whole crazy story. OK, if the cold was the problem, maybe I could speed up the warming process. I slipped the Fire between my legs. The Commander glanced over at me and rolled his eyes.
"I'm trying to warm it up, " I attempted to explain.
Didn't work. I unzipped my coat and put it inside my jacket and zipped it back up. Surely it would warm up against my body. Nope!
Alright. Time for the heavy artillery! I turned on the seat warmer and slipped it under my thighs. If that didn't warm it up, I was ashamed of the darn thing. After a suitable period of time, I tried to bring it out of its deep sleep. Nothing doing!
In frustration, I pushed the button again and again. I noticed that a green light was coming on at the bottom of the Kindle when I'd push the button but still nothing was showing up on the screen. All of a sudden, I thought I detected a faint glimmer of some words on the screen. I whipped off my glasses and peered at the screen. It said, "Do you wish to turn off your device?" Turn it off? Heck, I just wanted to turn it ON!
I touched the "Cancel" button and lo and behold, my screen lit up and my Fire was lit up like a ...well, like a Fire should be. Hmmm, a faint niggling suspicion was starting to form at the back of my brain. I slipped my glasses with clip-on sunglasses back on. Huh? The screen was suddenly completely black. I took off the clip-on sunglasses. The Fire was on and the images were right there. On/off.....on/off.....Every time I put on my clip-on sunglasses, the screen went completely black. Every time I took them off, my screen was on and working great.
Ah-ha! Apparently, my Kindle Fire hadn't been malfunctioning at all. The culprit was my clip-on sunglasses. They were polarized in such a way that they completely blocked out the Kindle Fire's screen. Of course, since I had them on when I was outside and in the car, I was only seeing a blank screen but since I didn't have them on inside, the Fire would seemingly come back to life once we were inside a house. Mystery solved. I am SO relieved and boy, am I glad that I didn't have to confound Amazon (and reveal my total idiocy) by calling Tech Services.
1 comment:
Oh, Dee. I'm laughing with you right now - but I wish you had called the tech services......it would have been funny to hear about their attempt to figure out it was just your sunglasses. They'd never have guessed!
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