Dream Kills Bug!

I'm sure you've heard the story about the brave little tailor who
boasted about killing seven in one blow-seven flies, that is. Well, how
many people do you know who have killed a bug with a dream? Go on,
count them. I doubt you'll have to remove your shoes or even resort to
the fingers on your other hand. In fact, I'm almost certain you've
never encountered anyone who has killed a bug with a dream. Until now,
that is.

I killed a bug with a dream once. A terrible bug. My hands are on my
hips--fingers forward, thumbs back--my chin slightly raised and head
turned in the direction of my far-off gaze. (Makes for difficult
typing.)

This was no ordinary, six-legged insect I subconsciously dispatched.
The classification for this bug was no-see-um electronicus. Or, in
laymen's terms, a computer bug.

(You may be interested to know the original computer bug was a real
bug. A moth, to be precise. "Amazing" Grace Hooper is credited with
coining the term "bug" when she traced an error in one of the first
electronic computers to a moth trapped in a relay. Grace removed the
moth and taped it to a page in a daily log. To this day, computer
problems are referred to as bugs.)

Before you can fully appreciate my bug-killing dream, you must
understand the predicament in which I found myself. The company for
which I worked as a software engineer was converting its software to
operate with another database (a database is a computer program that
manages the storage and retrieval of data). The chief engineer and I
put our heads together and devised a solution. Then I set about
implementing what we had designed.

Several bugs were discovered during testing and were resolved in the
usual, systematic fashion. All was going well until, to my dismay, the
worst variety of bug raised its hideous head: an intermittent,
difficult to reproduce, program-aborting bug.

I used every tool and bit of knowledge at my disposal to reproduce and
track down that demon. But, as we say in the Southern United States,
"Nuthin' doin'."

Now, I usually stick to a task until I've completed it, but I had tried
everything and anything to no avail. I fought the bug and the bug
won.

And so it was that one of the male gender's greatest defense mechanisms
kicked in and lifted my burden. I stopped clamoring for a solution and
rested in the fact that there's no problem so huge that it can not be
ignored.

Several weeks pasted without a single thought about the bug. Well,
except for the times I saw it wreak its havoc, but even then I
consciously ignored it. I was living in denial and loving it.

Then, early one, still-dark Saturday morning, in a half-waking,
half-sleeping state, I heard me think a question in reference to the
bug, "What do you think the problem could be?" Immediately, through
what I can only describe as a vision, I saw part of the program I had
written. The vision focused and zoomed in on a single program statement
and that statement contained the elusive bug!

This was not your garden-variety, running-but-can't-escape,
falling-falling-falling, wow-that-was-weird dream. I was wide-awake and
knew I had "found" the bug.

I quickly showered and dressed, and drove the hour to my office. I
opened the file containing the statement I saw in my vision-dream,
corrected it and tested the program. And it worked! I had had a
bug-killing dream.

The owner of the business arrived and was surprised to see me there on
a Saturday. I told him this story and delivered the good news that the
big, bad bug had been squashed. He was excited and polite, but I'm not
convinced that he wasn't convinced my cheese hadn't slid off my
plate.

I tell you the truth: I killed a bug with a dream.