Midnight Dreary

A friend of mine sent the following to me (apologies to Edgar Allan Poe...)
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 bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets;
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, then invoked the SAVE command
But I got a reprimand: it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed my options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly I must now adopt one:
Choose "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

With my fingers pale and trembling,
SLowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key--
But on the screen what did I see?
Again:  "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

I tried to catch the chips off-guard--
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards.
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation
Trying random combinations
Still there came the incantation:
Choose:  "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 an awful sight:
A bold and blinding flash of light--
A lightning bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die
"Oh no--my data base," I cried
I thought I heard a voice reply,
"You'll see your data Nevermore!"

To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes
I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored
But as for productivity, well
I fear that IT goes straight to hell
And that's the tale I have to tell
Your choice:  "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

--
Edited by Brad Templeton.  

Other humor in the GNU Humor Collection.

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Updated: 8 Apr 2000 tower