Many friends and family ping me for free (or nearly so) technical support. My five year old daughter's preschool had a computer. She announced to me one day that it wasn't playing the 'games', really educational activities, without acting funny but teachers aren't laughing. She told me another day that the computer had problems, then stopped working altogether.

To quote her, Oh, no, what are we going to do? My daughter's teachers lit up when she said, "Mommy fixes computers!" When I came to pick her up, the teacher asked, "Do you really fix computers? In a room full of pre-schoolers, the list of what could be wrong was a lot longer than most systems I worked with. I work in IT, I answered. Can you look at the computer? It isn't coming on." "I'm tech support for software, not hardware, but I can look."

The computer was encased in a protective wood shell to protect it from abuse from the horde of preschooolers. The crayon wasn't too bad, but I wondered about spilled drinks or play dough wedged in a critical spot. I had the teacher unlock the computer case (have to keep the kids out). Then she opened the hard drive's protective case. I thought it would be easy. After all, it could easily be a connection pulled loose or just unplugged by curious hands.

Lo and behold, the computer case was empty. "I know what the problem is," I announced. "What?" the teacher asked dumbfounded. "There's no computer." How could they do that? the teacher exclaimed. Then she went for an assistant manager, worried about theft , seeking answers of what to do next. The assistant manager did have the answer. It turns out that the computer had been taken for repairs on the word of the assistant manager, but the preschool teachers didn't know that.

It had to have been one of my easiest technical support diagnoses ever. It was also the simplest to resolve, since someone else was fixing it. I even had status reports, with my daughter telling me happily when the computer with its fun games was back and working.

My daughter is now on her first lessons of computer support. To solve the dilemma of the pressed buttons, I taught her how to turn it on. The second lesson was how to re-insert the keyboard plug when kids fighting over the keyboard make the computer stop doing what the buttons tell it to.