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Abort,
Retry, Ignore
Once upon a midnight
dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the
floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat
there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from
the drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the
disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there
wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning
yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness
gave no token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data
from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and
nothing more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced
before.
Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made
impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting
me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing
more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the
keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be
restored,
Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a
key.
But on the screen there still persisted words appearing
as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted,
as my patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed
again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine I begged and cried
and then I swore.
Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless
as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense
as before.
Reading, "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 a dreadful sight a lightning bolt
cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very
core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and
gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
To this day I do not know the place to which lost
data go.
What demonic nether world us wrought where lost
data will be stored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether,
into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate
and more,
You will be one day be left to wander, lost on some
Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
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