Adding to the Herd

Every morning, my husband brings me a cup of frothy French Roast coffee in bed, then he gathers his briefcase the size of Rhode Island, his lunch in a Kroger bag and leaves for work. I, in turn, have a cup of coffee with Cindy, Brooke, Kallay, Foxy, Monique, Tammy, and all of my other bloggy friends. I sip slowly and read the adventures and mis-adventures of these wives, moms, daughters, and friends. It's much more entertaining (and sometimes actually more educational) than watching the news. I used to watch the Today Show every morning, but after we lost Shep, I couldn't stand to watch all of the baby make-overs, the stories about pregnancy, and the mother/child series. This is a MUCH better routine. Yesterday, I popped open my laptop and...nothing. Black. Silence. No whirring motor, no wallpaper of daisies springing to life. Nothing. My mother and my preacher would be appalled at the string of words that came next as I unplugged, plugged back in, turned off, turned on, and finally in full disgust, threw a sock. I called my IT husband at work and he told me to take the battery out, put it back in, plug it back in, take the battery back out...etc, etc, etc....none of which was working. Well, I had been hoping for a new laptop...but not now...it's too soon! I haven't poured over the Consumer Reports recommendations...I haven't researched it on CNET...and I haven't talked to my dad. So. Not. Ready.

Do you remember that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie's laptop crashes and when she takes it in to be recovered, she is chastised for not backing up any of her files? And there she sits in her train-conductor-overalls and her horseshoe necklace, looking all contrite and morose about the loss of her work. That is exactly how I felt. With the invention of iTunes and the purchase of my iPod Touch came the need to back up files on a daily basis. With my membership to Facebook and Twitter came the need to run virus scans on a daily basis. Both of these have been ignored for months at a time. And it's not because I was not prompted to do so. I consciously ignored all warnings. If I was a hiker on the Iran border, I'd be in a prison camp right now. So, of course, Aiden (the boyfriend that we all loved and wished we could have taken home with us after Carrie shat on him again) bought her a new laptop with a zip drive so that this would never happen again. And in much the same way, Neal saved me when I called him from Best Buy with a salesman-recommended laptop at my fingertips.

Sidenote: I got this salesman-recommended laptop after I discovered that the Dell that I really wanted was sold out...something having to do with 500 GB of memory at $500. Anyway, he mentioned something about working for the state and I mentioned something about my husband working for court of justice and before I knew it, I was buying a computer. He just EXUDED confidence and knowledge. As we're standing in the Geek Squad line, waiting to be prepped, he starts telling me how he also works for the court of justice part-time as a traveling technician (which they DO have) and how he also hosts gaming servers for high schoolers who pay him $60/server. I begin to think "WHY is he telling me this?" And then...he told me how much his house cost. And how his ex-girlfriend tried to move her BFF and BFF's boyfriend into his house and he kicked them all out. I felt like we should be at a frat party instead of standing in the middle of Christmas-frenzied Best Buy on a Tuesday morning. I was WAY too sober for this conversation. Later, I told Neal that one of his "employees" sold me a laptop. And then last night he said: well I checked with somebody at work and he actually DID work for us but didn't make it past the probation period because apparently he's a pathological liar. So, what's the lesson to be learned here? Best Buy has great commercials about being helpful and friendly....but perhaps you should do your homework first. Because you never know if you'll get Lanny the Liar as your helpful salesman.

Much like Carrie Bradshaw, I'm having to re-learn a new laptop....but without the help of cigarettes or NYC in the springtime. This one has a full number pad on the right so my whole body has to shift to the left to keep me from hitting the "4" when I want to "enter"...and then there's the whole mouse-clicky-thingy issue at the bottom. But it's fast, it seems reliable and the screen is bigger than my TV from high school. Plus, it's named after a Greek god, so I figure that's a good sign. I'm no Athena but I like to blog on something that sounds like it should be residing on Mount Olympus....although that's a camera company now so perhaps I should aim for more modern heights. At the expense of my floor-to-ceiling shelving system Neal was going to install this weekend, I now have a new laptop. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make though since I can't very well run an internet business without a computer and returning emails on my iPod was giving me Witch's Finger.