My Love Hate Relationship With My Computer

Sometimes I hate my computer.  It seems possessed by some entity bent on destroying my sanity, with its maddening pop-ups, slow loading and homepage hijackings. A few days ago it went a lot haywire. The ever dreaded black screen appeared.   I tried my favorite computer fix: the on and off button. No go! I was desperate, because my almost done paper was in there. I tried the positive thinking, please dear universe help my computer, prayer.  The screen remains blank. I try the HP help center.  The computer messages me that I need to reboot in factory mode. A moment of panic! Factory mode will destroy all of my documents, including my almost complete six page paper.  Hopefully I back up the contents of my computer on a thumb drive. I desperately want that six page paper to come back. My HP defied me for the next three days.  My computer rebooted but did not want to download saved documents. It didn’t want to download Microsoft Office. It worked slowly and I waited and waited and clicked choices as it struggled to repair itself. I spent hours at the computer repair shop waiting, not liking the time wasting with homework due dates looming. Three days later my computer is back, but I don’t trust it.

While frustrated and worried, I tried to keep my Zen on. I tried reminding myself about all the good things that computers do for us. I went to school so many years ago that I remember that crazy old device called the typewriter. I remember liquid paper and the dreadful carbon copy. My typewriter was not electric, we couldn’t afford it. It took many more hours to type up a paper on a typewriter. It took several minutes and a lot of erasing or fumbling with liquid paper, to fix mistakes on typewriters. The worst: no spell check! Typing papers was tedious and time consuming. I was such a mistake maker and never could put the “fix letter” in the right place. The typewriter is primitive and could not help us with research. A walk or drive to the library was needed. Computers save us hours of work and provide a great procrastination tool (Facebook). On second thought,  I love (hate) my computer.

P.S. To all those people who create Mal-ware, you are slime.