Abort, Retry, Ignore

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, I then invoked the SAVE command

But I got a reprimand: it read Abort, Retry, Ignore.

Was this some occult illusion? Some ethereal 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 depressed 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 lightening bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.

I saw the screen collapse and die

"Oh no - my database," 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.

-- Author unknown