Back in December, I upgraded my computer monitors from 19" CRTs (heavy) to 22" flat-panel LCD displays (nice!). The day after the upgrade, I discovered a fact about flat-panel displays — they don't weigh very much. And they aren't weighted either. To put it bluntly, they're tippy.
Squirrel decided to jump to the bucket above my left-most monitor. The buckets are on a shelf, but he took advantage of the top of the monitor on the way up — just one back foot — Ba-Doink!
And my new 22" flat screen leaned forward and headed toward me. I stood up, leaned, grabbed... and caught the monitor in both arms before it could fall. Somehow, I also caught Squirrel (an interesting feat given that I only have two arms).
So there I was, holding the monitor (and Squirrel). Squirrel looked up ("I meant to do that!") and saw the interesting place behind the monitors — where he had never been before.
"Ooooh. I will explore!"
So I was left holding the monitor while Squirrel wandered off into the maze of cables, sniffing.
After I managed to entice Squirrel back out from the new Place he had discovered, and put the monitor back into position, I told Rich what had happened. We discussed options... we considered a deeper shelf (not readily available; not easy to create) and finally settled for cinching the monitor to the shelf with a short bungee cord.
It took a couple of weeks before things were stress-tested. Bebop and Raven usually approach the buckets from another route and Squirrel wasn't interested in being the guinea pig for this experiment. But, eventually, Mezzaluna decided to take a nap in one of the buckets, leaping from the table by my elbow to monitor to bucket...
Boing!
She's not heavy but the boingboing factor should not be dismissed as trivial.
The monitor held steady, with only a slight rocking motion. The kitty reached the safety of the bucket and curled up for a nap.
Chalk up another success for Harry Homeowner.
Ba-Doink! (Oops) - posted by Vicki at Mon, 26 Feb, 18:00 Pacific
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