The Story of Ned, Ted, and Gandalf- The Reason Behind Your "Accidentally" Deleted Paper
You know those moments when you’re just about to submit something vitally important – such as a tax form or a test – and then right when you click ‘submit’ your entire work is lost? You want to vent your anger on your computer or other device, but something in you stops you – because if you destroyed your computer, you couldn’t have this same experience again. And again. And again. And then what would your life be like?
Little did you know that there’s a reason for these moments – beyond the purpose of making you frustrated. In reality, every time you hit the ‘start’ button on your computer you’re not just commanding life to your technology. You’re also actually waking up someone. And not just any someone – a little
man named Ned. But careful – he’s rather sensitive about his size. Even as I write this he’s attempted to use spell check to change my words – but even I will catch the change from “little man” to “handsome stallion”.
Before he uses the computer’s updates to restart it without saving my work, I will attempt to write down what I know of his story.
There were once three brothers – Ned, Ted, and Gandalf (Gandalf has a colorless last name; no relation to Gandalf the White or Gandalf the Grey). Ned and Ted were twins – with Gandalf only a year younger than them. As the tale goes, one time when they were in high school, they received a research
assignment as a part of their history class. Ned immediately set to work googling things on the computer– with Ted eagerly waiting by the printer for the results of Ned’s work. Gandalf, being the competitive younger brother he was, believed he could find results on his smartphone faster than Ned could on his computer. After all, isn’t a smartphone supposed to be smart?
In their race to out-research each other, both modified their devices to take in all the power and information they possibly could. Captivated by their competition, they were unaware of the electrical storm brewing outside. After all, the town of Lightning Point wasn’t named that for nothing.
Ned, Ted, and Gandalf were so unaware of the storm, in fact, that they hardly felt it when a bolt of lightning struck their generator and electrocuted them – zapping them straight into the nearest technological device. Ned went headfirst into his laptop, Ted belly-flopped into the printer, and Gandalf cannon-balled his way into his smartphone.
Thus began their immortal lives in technology. But they didn’t become immortal in the sense that they grow older and never die, but rather they became immortal in the sense that they are stuck the age they were when they were electrocuted – stupid teenage boys.
Naturally, teenage boys love sleep. And food. Unlucky for us, Ned, Ted, and Gandalf all go to sleep in the “start” button – for that is the warmest and most comfortable place in all devices. So every time we push “start” to wake up our devices, we also wake them up too – and being the teenage boys they are, they don’t like being rudely woken up like that.
In retaliation, sometimes we can’t log in – or they use updates to restart your device so they can catch an extra few moments of sleep. While they’re awake is the most dangerous to you – for Ned and Gandalf still compete in their research, and if they feel that you’re out-researching them or distracting them from their very important research, they will use technology against you (and convince Ted not to print anything you need) – one of the perks of living on the other side of the screen .
You can try to appease them, but nothing works. The best thing you can do is send them away to go annoy someone else – they’ve traveled the world from device to device. This is my full knowledge of the tale of Ned, Ted, and Gandalf – if you ever discover what they were researching, or how to get them
out – I
