Sometimes, you just need to turn it off then back on again.
This applies to many things, I think.
My phone, the magical glass brick I hold in my hand this very moment, will occasionally refuse to send or receive texts. I'll discover this hours after my message was never received, of course. "Didn't you get my text?" "Why no, I did not! Did you send one?" "Why yes, I most certainly did! See? It's right here! It says 'sent'." "Ok, but does it say 'delivered'?" "Well... no. No it doesn't." "Then you sent it. But you did not deliver it." "Well, what the bajeezums is the difference?" "Well, you see, in one scenario, it gets sent. In the other, it gets delivered." "Oh. Well. Since you put it that way..." I shut my phone down, let it do its thing, then start it back up again, let it do its thing again. "Oh! There it is! I got your message now! Thank you for trying to let me know to put my phone away because the boss was coming. If only I had gotten your message in time! They were quite adamant as they escorted me to the door that I would not be returning to work there. Now I'm having trouble finding my résumé on the laptop. It's just gone!" "Did you try turning it off, then back on again?"
Even the complicated machinery at the ol' track factory functions like this. Every so often, it will glitch out and start misbehaving. I'll call a mechanic over. "It's been fine all day, but then it suddenly started doing this weird thing with the timer. It just keeps on counting. The cycle should have finished ten minutes ago." "Hmmm... have you tried e-stopping it?" (For those of you who are unfamiliar with factory machinery; an e-stop, or, emergency stop, will shut down the energies to a machine, effectively turning everything off) "No, I haven't tried that." "Do it." "Ok... Hey! It worked!"
Sometimes, I wish I had a big red e-stop button on my forehead. Every time I felt like beating my head on a brick wall, I'd just shut down. Then I could restart and everything would work right again! I think I remember Data doing something like this on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He shut himself down, turned himself back on (how did he do that second part?), and was all better again. My memory of the show is likely butchering the actual script, but the idea is promising. Especially if you're an android.
You know... I'm not really much of a napper. But maybe naps are like a shut down and restart. Go to bed glitched out and wake up... reset? I may have to give it a shot.
Of course, one could argue that we go to sleep every night, thereby resetting daily. Another could reply that that is an excellent point and I hadn't considered that until just now. Perhaps I need that nap more than I originally thought...
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