Don’t Mess With Me, Flag People: I’m The Mother Of Sons

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Share one thing that you learned recently.

Technical ability is a gift; not a right: installing a flag counter is 1% aspiration; 99% perspiration; and 100% passing the buck.

It’s why I had children.

This Is An Amended Post

Because it wasn’t meant to be a post at all. 

I read Sarsm‘s post with excitement this morning, because I have always wanted one of these flag counters on my blog.  ‘It’s all straight forward enough’ she assured me, bless her heart. 

Of course it wasn’t: she didn’t know the greatest technept in the world was about to mangle it.  I don’t know how to make the email contact details whateveryoucallit so that you can click on it to contact me instead of having to copy _ ) ( * where is the stupid plus sign on this stupid foreign keyboard!!? copy + paste my email address.  I have outdated widgets on my right; and I would love to add the postaday2011 widget to my blog but I can’t get the hang of it, despite following the WordPress instructions to the letter.

By the way, you might come across this post while I’m halfway through updating and it won’t make much sense: that’s because I had forgotten it was a published post and when I went to save there was no ‘save’ button so I used ‘update’ and, despite the fact that this is post number 667, it was only then I realised that the published post would be amended publicly.  Furthermore, if you are unfortunate enough to be reading this now, you get to see the magic in action as I fix spellings, change font colours, rearrange sentences.  Like sausages and laws, laughinghousewife posts should not be viewed in the making.  I can only apologise.  Because I certainly can’t work a blog.

I obeyed Sarsm and clicked on her flag counter.  I was taken to a page that should have been dressed as a cartoon witch because it curled its elongated crone fingers at me and crooned, ‘Get yours!’  Taking one careful step at a time, I did.

The result was an email in my inbox: ‘[New post]thelaughinghousewife’.  Yes, I subscribe to my own blog.  I don’t want to miss anything.  You’re mocking now but I have been proven (and in this blog that’s pronounced ‘proo-ven’, not the fancy-schmancy BBC ‘pro-ven’ that does my ‘ead in) right: how else would I have discovered that the Flag Counter people sent my flag counter in a new post?

That’s right: I have my very own flag counter.  Not on the right, under my ancient widgets, inflated blog roll and stats; but in a post.  A post I am going to have to find every time I want to check flags.  Fine for the next week or even month; but after that?  I’m up to three posts a day: you do the math.  And while you’re at it, tell me this: what have Americans got against the letter ‘s’?

To increase my already massive frustration (be glad if you’ve come late to this post because all pretend expletives have by now been deleted), I have to enable Publicize Yahoo!, Facebook and Twitter again; and change my password.  That took me forty minutes because I couldn’t figure out where to do it so I reverted to my tried and trusted method of click everything until something looks useful.

I have just heaved the most massive sigh and you know why?  As I’ve been updating this post, the flag counter has been updating the number of views and it’s wrong: as of this moment I have had 106 page views, according to the flag counter; but only 46 hits. 

I broke the flag counter.  Which has reciprocated by breaking me.  This is thelaughinghousewife signing off for the final time: I’m off to India to be recycled as a washing machine.