Have you ever wanted to cause the creative demise of the inventor of something?

My father had a fatal flaw. He envisioned himself as a Mr. Fix It, but he wasn’t very good at it, and he didn’t have much patience. This resulted in colorful language my mother did not approve of and, if we could successfully hide, much amusement for us as kids.

One legendary blow-up occurred when he was attempting to fix the toilet. After something went wrong, he roared, “If I could get my hands on the son of a bitch that invented this piece of crap, I’d stick his head down it and flush.” Weak from rolling on the floor and laughing—toilet humor is always popular with kids—we never forgot.

This morning, after fruitlessly searching Microsoft Word 2007 Help, (what else is new) watching their unhelpful demos, trying six million (OK, it seemed like six million) different phrases (because Microsoft does not think like you and me), I lost it, and in the spirit of my long-gone dad, screamed at my computer, “If I had the son of a bitch who invented this piece of crap, I would chain him to wander in Word Help through all eternity.”

In case you care, I googled Close Header and Footer, and got help from Microsoft Word for Dummies (Stop snickering; I was happy to wear the label at that point.).

So, tell me your story.