Apologies to E.A.Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
Manuals and waste paper piled upon the floor,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read
................................."Abort, Retry, Ignore."

Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal 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 pressed 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 lightning 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.

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