Breaking the Glass

It was a dark and stormy night.  Maybe not quite stormy, but certainly rainy.  The frustration inside the cab of the truck was building almost as high as the fatigue.  The tire had flattened with alarming quickness, indicating a catastrophic failure from a puncture or freak aneurysm of rubber.

Now, parked alongside a quiet neighborhood sidewalk, grateful to have not been traveling at speed or on a road, it was time for me to get out and begin gathering the tire changing implements.  I opened the rear door of the cab, too tired to care what might be leaning against it and too angry at the rotten luck of the tire to think further.

The bag tipped, the flap was unbuckled. With a sound like an assassin's blade sliding free before the kill, the $700, 64 Gb, WiFi only, black iPad 2 fell like a dying comet toward the pavement.  A split second of horror and then the gut churning crunch of impact and wet slap as the device came to rest, screen down, like a slain Elvish princess.

I cursed the old gods and the new.  I cursed the rain and the tire.  I cursed gravity and Isaac Newton.  I cursed my too slow hands in reaching to save my precious device from its ugly end.

The damage was less than feared, but worse than allowable in a device such as this, which is made to be seen and consumed.  Pictures are below.  My precious iPad left my possession today and I will be receiving another one in the coming days.