My feelings for my laptop are much like my feelings for my husband. Sometimes I love it madly and want to shower it with affection. And sometimes I hate it with a passion, and want to hurl it against the wall in disgust.
Over this past week, my feelings have fallen firmly into the latter category. Initially my laptop began behaving erratically and causing me considerable inconvenience. It became inexplicably slow, taking minutes to find a website, and occasionally grinding to a halt in the middle of an application. But still, I was understanding. I know that laptops are moody, and can fall into depressions. They simply need a nice new software update, or a refreshing defragmentation, and they’ll be right as rain again.
So I was gentle. I didn’t yell, or hit the keyboard. I simply updated and defragged and scanned, and waited for the fog to pass.
But the fog didn’t pass. It got worse.
My laptop began freezing and closing at the most inopportune moments. Links stopped working. Videos stopped playing. And, in the cruelest twist of all, my daughter’s Club Penguin account refused to load. Now, I can cope if something is hurting me, but if it starts hurting my child, I do not like that at all.
It was time for serious action. I did frantic internet searches on how to fix the problem, which was challenging, as my computer kept crashing in the middle of the exercise. Still, I resolutely persisted, and eventually found the answer. I had to uninstall software A and then install software B and then reinstall software A again, and it would all be resolved. Simple.
I felt proactive and proud. I was a woman of the web. I was independent and free. I didn’t need an IT person to make me happy!
I uninstalled, installed, and reinstalled, rebooted the computer, then announced to my daughter that she could come and play her game.
There was just one small problem. The computer wasn’t fixed.
I was stunned. I’d been so sure! I’d been so confident! I’d promised my daughter I could do it! I had to fix it. I had to make things right!!!
I began obsessively trawling through the internet, trying dozens of different ways to get my computer working again. I asked Twitter’s advice. I phoned a friend. I stayed up till the wee small hours of the night loading and re-loading. I stayed up until I was sobbing with frustration, ready to give up my online career forevever, and retreat to my office with a pen and some paper. Nothing helped. I had to admit defeat.
This morning I took my laptop to a nice shop down the road, where they promised to fix it for a small fee. The man was very kind and didn’t even yell at me for installing all those weird programs over the past 24 hours. And my daughter has been very understanding about not being able to play her games.
As for me, well, the ink made my hands all messy, and I couldn’t read my own writing anyhow. Turns out my computer is even more like my husband than I thought. It makes me crazy, it makes me cry, but I just can’t live without it.
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