a story about magnets

Once upon a time.... no, this is not a fairy tale. It's a true story. Settle in.


Ok, like I said, once upon a time, in the mid 1980s (what? you weren't even born then? sigh) shortly before we were married, my husband bought a sporty, bright blue, Z24 Cavalier. It was a fun little car, way ahead of it's time, with a fully computerized dashboard! Now really, not many things were computerized in the mid 1980s. Seriously. I know you youngsters are having a hard time imagining that but it's true.


So, on with the story. A couple of years after he got the car, strange things started happening. The dash would go out at random times. Now when the dash went out, you lost all your crucial information. For example, you had no idea how fast you were going (which would have been a big problem for me, the speedster, but did not seem to be a problem for him. hmmm). You didn't know how much gas was in the tank. Little stuff like that. He took the car into the repair shop several times, but alas they could not seem to figure out the problem. (I know what you're thinking, ummm Ellyn? I thought this was a crafty blog? Why are we discussing cars? Stick with me...)


Well eventually it got really bad & we decided to trade the car in. By some miracle, the dash actually worked when the dealer took it for a testdrive & we got a decent trade on it. When hubby cleaned out the glove box, there was a huge bundle of magnets in there (for a reason unknown to me.) Hmmmm magnets... computer..... problems..... do you think? Ever since then he has been stressing to me & the kids how important it is to keep magnets away from all our computers.


Flash forward, say oh, 20 years..... I have been making laptop cases. First one for Leigh Anne's new Macbook, and now one for me.... I've had these two fabrics for ages & didn't know what to do with them. Don't they look great with the linen? I really like the look. Here's the inside of the flap...

Oh geez. Do you see what I did? I PUT MAGNETIC SNAPS ON BOTH OF OUR LAPTOP CASES!!!!!! Brilliant. Hubby took one look at it & said, "ummm honey? Is that snap magnetic?" Why yes dear. It sure is. So yesterday I took the snaps out of both of them & replaced them with velcro...

On Leigh Anne's I was able to neatly undo the lining remove the snaps. On mine, not so much. So I kind of cut some holes, then patched it back up. It all ended up looking just fine except for the extra stitching on the outside of the flap. So I found a big button & sewed it on for decoration...

And no, it doesn't have a magnet on it. Lesson learned.