When All Else Fails — David Pascoe

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

When All Else Fails — David Pascoe

The door slams open of its own accord, drawing eyes from the assembled Huns, Hoydens and Dinerites. After an incomprehensible series of grunts between the figure outside it and the draconic door warden, the former staggers in. A long coat of deep green with a matching mantle broadens the figure into almost dwarven proportions. The brim of his chocolate brown hat covers most of his face, but for the reddish beard failing to hide his grimace of concentration. He weaves his way toward the bar and collapses – if one can collapse upward – onto a stool. Somehow he ends up half-reclined with his elbows on the bar. One hand tips the hat upward and you see the surprisingly grim visage of the Kilted Coffee Maker. His pale skin is even more so than usual, and there are dark circles under his eyes – eyes that stare through the wall.

A hush falls over the madhouse, an especially unnatural one as this place is never quiet. But, speaking of “unnatural,” nobody has ever seen the Kilted One out from behind the enormous (and enormously complicated) Espresso Device taking up one end of the bar. Taking up one end, and growing into the floor, through the wall, and extending what seem to be some kind of techno-organic tendrils up toward the ceiling. Mostly, you just don’t question it, as the coffee’s better than anywhere else in the multiverse.

“So that thing you’re told about parenthood? The one about the so-called Mommy Brain? How you can’t focus, and every sense seems tuned ” Even his voice is just a bit hoarse, as though he’d wandered in at the end of a five-day con. “I figured it was a matter of hormones, but it seems to be something a bit more metaphysical: turns out it’s not limited to mothers. This has been a hell of an experience, and I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart.”

He reaches into a pocket of his coat and pulls out a dark bottle with no label. He stares at it for a long moment, as though he doesn’t really recognize it. A man in the uniform of a Gunnery Sergeant of Marines slides a church-key down the bar. Without seeming to see it, the barista snatches it up as it bounces down the length of scarred, polished wood and pops the top off the bottle.

“Thanks, Gunny,” he tips the bottle in salute, a salute the Gunnery Sergeant mirrors, lifting his Dr. Pepper in reply. “So, yeah, focus has been … lacking. You may notice the recent automation in the Stuff of Life department down at the far end of the bar. I think the pipeline for the Black Blood of the Earth is flowing. The percolator and its feral offspring were finally corralled sometime last night. Those’ll be put out to pasture, as I won’t have that kind of coffee abuse here. You want to burn coffee, do it at home. Otherwise, the inter-dimensional drip – y’know, the one that crosses the eighth – should be solid for the foreseeable future. The Kilted Coon’s supply is guaranteed. Unless somebody lets the Cthulumari loose again. I won’t be held responsible for that kind of twisting of reality, nor the consequences thereof.”

He lifts his hand and stares at the bottle as though he’d forgotten he was holding it. He takes a long pull, and keeps pulling. When he’s finished it off, he kind of relaxes, muscles unknotting. He looks to melt into a puddle right there on the bar.

“Where was I? Right, parentdom, that glorious state of responsibility for something unable to care for itself. Y’know, I’ve been on call 24/7 before. I’ve spent hours and hours doing nothing but waiting for things of little interest to happen. What I haven’t done – until the last-” his eyes lose focus and the fingers of his free hand beat a rapid tattoo on the bar, “-is try to hold down more than one job at a time while making sure something small, weak, and unutterably adorable doesn’t bring my world crashing down around my ears.”

He absently pulls another bottle from his coat pocket and you know this one couldn’t have been there unless the pocket is as ankle-length as the coat itself. He retrieves the church-key and attempts to open the bottle. Upon repeated failure, he finally looks at it and you see his face shift from puzzled to complete befuddlement as he realizes he was trying to open single-malt as though it was a beer bottle. He closes his eyes.

“Right. Forgot I’m not supposed to do that. She’s gonna have my guts for garters if this is one of hers.” He opens his eyes and addresses the you and the rest of the rapt audience. “Let this be a lesson to you: don’t go traveling through Faerie and into any of the purely literary inspired splinter ‘verses. You never know what kind of ability you’ll come back with, and Herself can be murder on exposing our cozy, little arrangement here-” A roar briefly deafens the assembled and the barista grimaces as dust drifts down from the ceiling. “Yeah, she’s still working on Through Fire, so I might be safe, but don’t bet on it. Worse comes to worst, I’ll toss Wee Dave at her and jump into the Catacombs. The ‘Mari down there run wild until we need ’em. Strangely enough, crating ’em like veal just toughens them up. If the Grandsquirm and the ‘Mari aren’t enough distraction, I’ll just have to take my medicine, I suppose. Unless the EE Quantum Whatsit is actually working as designed. Usually it just spews really, really low energy particles, which is why we use it to chill the beer. No, I don’t understand how it works, and no, it shouldn’t be able to do what it does. EE products are … better than things designed by B.S. Johnson, that way.”

He flicks the cork out of the bottle with his thumb and takes a pull. Another grimace.

“Not how one treats a good single malt, but needs must. Where was I? Oh, right, parenthood. That question is Exhibit A. I can’t seem to focus on anything anymore. Not for longer than about a minute and a half. The writing has suffered. Herself suggested that she may or may not have experienced something similar with the Heinlein’s namesake. I’m just praying it doesn’t take me the same time to get back around to productive. Well, to get around to productive, as I remain unconvinced I’ve even seen that one from the right side.”

He scowls into the glass tumbler the gentlebeast down the bar has thoughtfully deposited near his right elbow.

“High intelligence is as often a curse as a blessing, and while I can see what needs to be done – in those rare moments of quasi-clarity – I have been as yet unable to affect such change. My Pint-Sized Tyrant’s needs come before mine, and after She Who Must Be Obeyed’s duty has been seen to. As I intimated, the writing is the worse. The writing and the perspective. Those are the worst. No, the writing, the perspective, and the lack of exercise. I’ll just come in again, shall I? It’s those days where I stare at the screen, write a sentence, stare at it, stare at it some more, write another sentence, repeat, then look up and realize I’ve written a matter of sixty or seventy words and it’s time to go wake the Boy-Creature, after which my time is not my own. Those days are dark, and most days are those days.”

His smile is weary, and he raises his now half-full glass to Foxfier.

“I salute you, Lady, for I don’t know how you do it. We’re discussing the timing for Working Title the Second, and a not minuscule portion of my soul cringes, I tell no lie. If I didn’t, already,” he jiggles the glass of amber liquid, “it could drive me to drink. I’ve thought about quitting, I’m willing to admit. Just give it up for a while. My lovely wife would call some of you for help moving my cooling corpse, as I’d become completely unlivable in near-record time, however. I’d really rather not push her that far. It would complicate so many of her plans, you see. Also, I expect my head might explode.”

He drains the glass and fills it halfway, muttering about optimists, pessimists and scientists. From his other pocket he draws a small brown bottle. Unscrewing the cap, he draws an eyedropper from the bottle and empties it into his glass. A sniff, a sip, and one corner of his mouth quirks upward.

“At the other end of the spectrum lies the suicide of the spirit, quick or slow. Doing all the things I used to enjoy doing, but which produce nothing, and eventually I’ll be just a shell of a man.” He finishes the glass, again. His words aren’t slurring, and he’s not weaving any more than he was when he staggered in the door, but his face has lost a little of the haggard look.

“For me – and for most of us, I’d posit – it’s going to come down to a third option. The one where we keep on as we intend. Compromises may be made, but they’ll be internal. For me, I may lose sleep. I understand that’s normal for parents. I may cut out large chunks of what I used to do for fun. I’m not really even sure how that word applies to my life right now, anyway. I’ll trade the wall in for a nice, heavy anvil. The wall has too many head-shaped holes, you understand. And the anvil can be used to make things, too. Or just prop one’s feet on. I’ll continue writing, as I can’t do otherwise. My father told me once of a shirt he saw, the caption of which said, “When all else fails, lower your expectations.” At the time, I found it vulgar. Now, I think I’m starting to see the wisdom in it. I’d like to maintain what little claim to sanity I can legitimately own, after all. Keeping the Heir Apparent alive at the end of the day is a hefty accomplishment. Perhaps everything else is just gravy. Or at least gravy for today.”

90 thoughts on “When All Else Fails — David Pascoe”

    2. I just keep hearing my mother when I talk.

      Or my grandmother. Both of them. Sometimes in stereo…..

      Talk about having a head-space coven.

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  2. I don’t remember how old your little one is, but with ours, it seemed like it was about six months before we got our lives back. It wasn’t the same life, of course, but everything seemed to settle in about that point.

    And I’m wondering why the italics are showing up as HTML code? It looks like you got them right. Just WP weirdness?

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    1. That’s my expectation. Wee Dave is closing in on five months. He’s rolling over, though is trying to eschew the over-and-over method in his attempts – thus far unsuccessful – to make genuine forward progress. Really, I don’t often want my “old” life back. This one is fine. I’d just like to feel a little less weary, a little more … well, “in control” is a fool’s dream all the way along, but a little more competent to ride the swells. Also, I have this dream, where in the five minutes between any major thing, I can run down here to the office and pound out a few hundred words. I understand this is possible, I just haven’t managed it, and every attempt I make ends up in unwritten words and frustration. So far. Like I said: head=>anvil(should eventually)=>change.

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      1. The new normal will settle in, and demands will change — not lessen mind you — but the nature of them will change. It will no longer be on all your time. You will get to sleep. You will have time to write. Still, your patience and ingenuity will be tested. Oh yes, and your pocketbook. Finally on your ability to let go.

        Meanwhile you will discover all sorts of new ways to look at things and myriad interests you didn’t know you would have just because there is this new small person in your life who will bring them into your world.

        Enjoy.

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        1. And you will discover pockets of personal growth you never knew existed until they showed it to you.

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              1. Well, yes. With Wee Dave, he hasn’t yet hit that point where he’s mobile, speaking, and willful. It’s at that point my patience and self-control will really get a work-out.

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      2. Uh oh, it was at about this point that I let eldest roll herself off the bed (for no damage); a word to the wise, just in case.

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    2. Because I’m an idiot. They insist on sending me stuff HTML (Totally unnecessary, but they’re stubborn) and I keep forgetting and putting it up as though it were normal.

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      1. I admire the manner in which you have claimed fault while immediately shifting it to others. Are you preparing for a campaign for public office?

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  3. Takes me roughly three months of focus on infant, personally. After that, it wasn’t too hard for me to sit with baby in lap while working on keyboard. But for a good chunk of this, I guess, my keyboard sat on the foot of my bed, or next to me on the pillow. Had fairly big gaps between mine though…

    It’s actually, from memory, easier before they hit age one.

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    2. It’s actually, from memory, easier before they hit age one.

      My concern is that’s more or less what I’m hearing, all the way along. Creating, especially is a skill that decays with neglect. I’ll keep using it, but I don’t want to lose it. (It’s early and I’m barely through the first cup of Life; bear with me.) Really, what I need to do is train up Dragon – hey, that sounds like there’s a story in that – and dictate my way to success. *sigh*

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        1. Of course, Dragons can help deal with those “little problems”. Sorry wrong type of Dragon!!! [Very Big Grin]

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        2. How well does Dragon work with multiple voices babbling away? ‘Cause those phone-voice things flip out: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your response. Say automobile insurance for . . . I’m sorry, I don’t . . . ” etc. #5 has her screech when Momma’s on the phone skills timed perfectly.
          I keep thinking Dragon would be worth trying, but only if it can distinguish between the one it’s supposed to listen to and the others.

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          1. A good microphone is essential in that case. It is easier to get noise reduction with a microphone than train the program to avoid it, at least at version 12. Some of what I’ve read says they’re improving that with 13, but I can’t afford to upgrade yet. It does reasonably well in an ‘ordinarily’ noisy room with loud computers and other such noises.

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            1. “A good microphone is essential in that case. It is easier to get noise reduction with a microphone than train the program to avoid it”

              The key here is not how expensive the microphone is, but where it is located. In general you want the mic as close to the lips as you can without getting in front of them. About 1/4″ behind a corner of the mouth seems to be ideal. It is away from the breath blast in front of the mouth, but much closer to the mouth than it is to other sounds you don’t want it to pick up.

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              1. That sounds right from what I saw several years ago with (essentially) the Mac version, whose name at the time escapes me (Dictate?); it’s Dragon now, I’m pretty sure. The kit came with a USB microphone and headset. The speech recognition software goes back to IBM; they sold it or spun it off.

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              2. Indeed, I just know when I very first started trying Dragon, it wasn’t even with a headset it was with my webcam mic and a cheap radioshack omnidirectional thing. This Did Not End Well ™. ;)

                I got a head set and it started working much better. I now have a very nice head set (I got it for other reasons but it also works beautifully for Dragon.) If you’re going with a standard headset, directional mic is better than omni directional, and one that is a little ‘off center’ is better than centered. Adjustable is a mixed blessing. I kept jarring mine so settled for something rigid so it was always in the same place, though later models of Dragon were less sensitive to that than earlier.

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      2. In my experience (just one life, so . . . ) the creativity simmers and builds up. You may find yourself very productive . . . as soon as you catch up on sleep. Chronic lack of sleep is probably part of the problem, bad for the concentration and the crafting of a proper story.

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          2. I think I’d need to hit the point I reached in bootcamp, where all the f@$&s were someone else’s to give. For that to actually work, I need to get daily PT (which isn’t happening right now, and is detrimental) and sleep about four hours each night. I’m actually doing all right on sleep, it’s all the other parts of being the primary for an infant that wear me down. I expect if I actually got less sleep, it might work out better. Except that I get grouchy really easily, and I’d rather not alienate Mrs. Dave. She might leave me alone with the Son-Creature longer …

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        2. That’s the “funny” (for a given value thereof) part: we’re doing fine on sleep, give or take. He’s a great sleeper; always has been. It’s just all the other parts, and also that I’m constitutionally incapable of concentrating while he cries, fusses, etc. And apparently, unable to work when he doesn’t. I anticipate this changes, one way or another. It’s as much just the current challenge, as anything else.

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          1. Princess loved to sit against my chest and lap when I was on the computer. Although you need to give them a keyboard, too, or you’ll be sharing….

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      3. Paradoxically enough, the claimed “easiest” stage is always the one you are in, except when it is never the one you are at. As each child is unique, trust that “stages” are similarly unique. The Daughtorial spoke very early with exquisite sentence structure and enunciation — then waited two years to say another word. In the interim she became a highly skilled mime, able to convey her wishes through gestures of the finest imperious sort.

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      4. One of the things that is often pressed on parents is to try find a slice of time for themselves (and this is separate from time to show affection / together time with the spouse). Sounds insane, I know, and nearly impossible to get, but it’s necessary for parental sanity – especially since the tendency now is we don’t have extended clan or neighbors we are close to to ‘mind the baby’ for a few minutes, or there’s no slightly older kid to watch over the wee one (in the case of eldest children). For the eldest, I’ve found those baby carriers which keep the kiddly on the body of the parent to be handy (after all, parents in the less developed countries do this to free hands for chores and busywork) and if the baby’s awake I chat to the kiddly while working, or the baby’s in a crib near where I am (one of the portable playpens was useful for this.) It is MUCH easier when they start going to school. I use my snatches of ‘me’ time to write, scribble, plot or draw. I find that if I add it up, it’s something like 2-3 hours a day total, but it’s scattered throughout the day in perhaps 15-30 minute snatches, usually while I’m eating. I’ve taken to carrying a little notebook and pen everywhere to catch the stray thoughts for writing (Something I picked up, incidentally, from one of Tom Clancy’s characters, the eye surgeon wife of President Ryan.

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      6. A fellow computer tech (back when we were both computer techs) set up his wife’s Mac with macros and the in-built speech recognition so she could hold the baby and do graphics design.

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    3. I don’t have kids, but from observations that stage where the parents will start to fidget when it gets too quiet in the room where the offspring had been playing with his toys quite nicely just a few minutes ago seems to be interesting. :)

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      1. The old “It’s quiet. Too quiet.” thing. [Very Big Grin From A Single Guy]

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  5. Red 2.1 (Sib’s offspring) has reached the “run everywhere and stick everything into mouth then look cute” stage. She also sings rather than speaking, or at least did until last week. I suspect her parents recall the small, mostly harmless stage rather fondly, especially with concert season starting (Sib’s spouse is a professional musician.) I’m quite happy to the Crazy Aunt Red, the one that is invoked to explain “Where’d she learn that from? It wasn’t me” sorts of things. :D

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    1. Yep, Crazy Uncle Mike – best job in the house. Teach them to blow rasberries, get them to spontaneously laugh maniacally at innapropriate times, hand’em back when they get poopy.

      Later on you get to take them down the crazy ski runs with “Just don’t tell your folks…”

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      1. Uncle Travis: “Why if somebody broke my ___ I tell you what I’d do”
        ..
        ..
        ..
        “I’ve no idea why they hit their big brother over the head with a wooden closet rod.”

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  6. IMO it gets better, the older they get. Mind you, the trouble they get into can be more dangerous/costly but they aren’t just helpless. As for Working Title part 2, Don’t wait horribly long, else the length of time until they both go off to school lengthens intolerably.

    School is this wonderful thing where you have seven or eight hours a day when you can write, but mostly do chores, shop, and worry about the kids. And wonder if you ought to be homeschooling.

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    1. Two weeks before I (the youngest of 6) was supposed to enter kindergarten and my mother was going to have days free for the first time in 17 years, she stubbed her toe in the middle of the night. She did it badly enough to need a cast. On her right foot. She couldn’t drive until the cast came off. She figured God was punishing her for being so happy to be relatively child free. :)

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    1. He does that. Since the first week. The cloth diapers make an enormous difference in his comfort level. As does the Baby Hammock. He even naps, thank the Author. I presume the Mk. 2 will be hell on wheels from the get go, to make up for it.

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      2. Yep, he’s just messing with you :-D According to family lore, I (the eldest) thought sleep was a Communist Plot designed to keep me away from all the fun and resisted it mightily. My sister, like a good paratrooper, could sleep at any time and in any position and even (in one case) at my father’s bagpipe lesson. My mother kept checking her breathing…

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          1. The Daughter didn’t care whose plot or not. I do believe that as long as she thought there was something to be done or seen, and there always seemed to be something to be done or seen, even if the adults were passing out from exhaustion, possibly just because the adults were passing out and she found that in and of itself was amusing, she wanted to be awake for it.

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            1. The only way to put Robert to sleep was to demonstrate sleep (i.e. lie down and do nothing interesting.) Half the time he got up and terrorized the house while we REALLY fell asleep. I trained myself to wake when he got up. Unfortunately I still do that if he’s in the house.

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              1. It was almost like Sean was attuned to my actual sleep/wake state when it came time for him to go to bed when he was little. I would have to lie down on the floor and actually doze off, or he would stay awake.

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        3. My mother had 8 brothers, my dad had 6 brothers and a sister; but I successfully cured my parents of any desire for multiple offspring. :) I apparently slept for around six hours a night, but I was an early riser (4 am) and colicky. Apparently I screamed for the other eighteen hours a day for the first year.

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  8. Hey, number six here is at 3.5 weeks.
    Look, it gets easier with practice. After #3 you hardly notice you’ve got another ’til you turn up short one hand for grabbing kids that need grabbed–usually in the parking lot. #1 is the hardest (unless, maybe, you’re an older kid from a big family who got experience as a kid) because you’ve got to learn how to do everything. By #6, you turn the baby right way up and the burps flow out. #1, you pace the floor for two hours trying to get a burp out, and by then the baby is staaarving to death and the cycle repeats.
    The one thing you can do with #1 that you can’t do with the subsequent kids (except maybe #2, and only then if they’re close together and cooperative on schedules) is take a nap when the baby naps. And if you’re exhausted, I highly recommend that.
    As far as easier before age 1, well, to an extent. When you get the kid to mobile, you want to set up where the door can be secured. Kid can run around but can’t escape, and of course with proper baby-proofing, can’t get into half as much mischief as without. Less in need of you constantly, depending on personality, of course, but containment is the key. If they aren’t properly contained then they eat the dog’s food and put socks into the septic system. And of course, once they’re one and they’re eating food, then you’ll probably actually get a night’s sleep most nights.

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    1. When I was a toddler, we lived beside a busy street. So when Mom hung out clothes she tied a rope around my waist (attaching the other end to a strong post). [Very Big Grin]

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      1. Entirely reasonable, though today she’d probably get CPS called on her.

        They sell plastic cages for small children, however, which work for a time.

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        1. Nah, CPS wouldn’t be called. There are even leashes that you can buy that are designed specifically for keeping the kid close at hand when you’re out walking with them. They have adjustable lengths so that you can set exactly how far you want to let your kid get from you.

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          1. Yeah, but those attach the kid to you. I’ve seen ill-intentioned strangers accost parents using them and tell them those are child abuse, too. (We tried one for all of five minutes: that’s how long it took Eldest to get out of it. We spank for taking off car seat belts, too: we’re evil.)

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            1. Daughtorial Unit was given the choice: tether or walk about with one arm raised over your head, losing feeling in the hand as the shoulder locks into place.

              Same argument works for those strangers, too, when properly presented (never offer such strangers a word of defense; make your points by accusing the buttinski of wanting your child to suffer.)

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      2. And you constantly addressed her as ‘Lady’ and had a dog named ‘Buttons”? I think i saw that one.

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        2. Nope, she was “Mom”, “Mother” or “Mommy” (used the last as an adult when I thought she was forgetting I was an adult). Never had a dog named Buttons that I remember. [Grin]

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            1. I *knew* that you were making some sort of reference (didn’t know to what) but was playing it straight. [Evil Grin]

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              1. I was going to provide a linky, but apparently Warner Bothers has asserted their copyright on all english-language clips from that particular Animaniacs segment.

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    2. We … actually don’t suffer from a lot of the first-time parent issues. Wee Dave is a pretty easy kid, all things considered. This “teething at three months” nonsense is a thing I could do without, especially in the last couple of days, as his face seems to be hurting more. Generally, he’s pretty mellow. He just wants ALL DADDY’S ATTENTION. It helps that he’s a cute, little beggar. Five gallons of personality in a gallon package, too. It just makes it challenging when I’m cooking (did I add a tablespoon of the cayenne, or do I have that yet to do?) or when I’m trying to do something business related. Like write. Everything costs more and takes longer, I’m noticing. I miss the days when I could throw a few changes of underwear in a backpack with my books and RPG supplements and go. Even a run to the grocery store is an endeavor. And – don’t tell anybody, especially my sister – he’s been sleeping through the night from the first week. A blessing we did not expect, as I think that may be about all that’s kept me sane. Really, it’s more about the changes in me, than in our routine, I think. I’m weary from coping with the constant adjustments I have to make to ensure his mother and he are good to go. There’s little left for myself at end of the day. But what doesn’t kill me …

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      1. Well, then you aren’t that sleep deprived. You’ll make it. Oh, and if in doubt, the cayenne goes on the table–he’ll only try stealing it once! (Or twice, in which case you know to apprentice him to a scientist.)

        Unfortunately, grocery store runs stay an endeavor for a long time. Even once they’re potty trained–my ten year old gets distracted by the displays of shiny fruit and wanders off. Still. And Costco is as bad as an amusement park (though I like their diapers–we do cloth at home, days, paper out and nights).

        Pass the coffee, will you? #6 was up til one last night. Growth spurt, you know.

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      2. “He just wants ALL DADDY’S ATTENTION.”

        Be assured that will not last. Enjoy it while it does, for someday you will be hopelessly uninformed and ignorant of the things that make life truly worth living — such as cute girls.

        Go ahead and mourn the loss of easy travel. For the next decade even the simplest overnight journey will involve more accessories that you can possibly imagine … then there will be the family holiday trips. I swear my father-in-law had spies measuring exactly how much spare space I had built in for the trip home, after delivery of presents and disposal of disposables — and would manage to give us at least 10% more volume than was allowed for. (We finally stopped even bothering with gifts for the Daughtorial Unit at Christmas, saving such for a family observation of Twelfth Night in relative peace.)

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  9. The best part about kids is that eventually, in theory, they become adults. Though some people seem intent on disproving that theory.

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  10. <Very off topic, but I be at wits’ end: Anybody know a cure for a buggered thumb drive? The one I use for archiving articles and files (mostly in MS Notepad) went on the fritz Sunday, refusing to save text files with the excuse of unidentified I/O problem.

    I managed to save a few files (including, Thank Hashem, my resumes) to another thumb drive, but started getting error 0x8007045D messages trying to convince me to invest in a registry repairer. After leaving it overnight trying to move a folder of 2004 files to the new thumb drive, I came down this morning to the news that the transfer had failed, that it no longer believed I had ever had the old thumb drive and if I wanted to use it I should format the thing.

    Needless to say, I have been more than usually dour over the prospect of ten years accumulated archives being ground to dust, along with the time and energy spent creating those archives. Having recovered some small tatters of my customary feigned aplomb, I feel sufficiently up to handling the bad news that “It’s dead, Jim” to ask whether there is any glimmer of hope in that particular box?

    Oh, and for all of you using thumb drive storage, it ain’t secure so make sure you routinely back it up.

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