August 14th, 2017

My computer and I have been fighting lately.  It has been an epic battle.  And like  most wars, it is based upon opposing, but equally strong beliefs.  I believe that my computer should work.  It does not. 

When my computer behaves like this, I gain weight.  Which also doesn't make me happy.

Last Friday, I was determined to write the birthday blogpost about my father.  My computer was equally determined that I would not.  But I won.  It took more than three hours of starting over and over, of shutting the machine down and then powering it back up.  Three hours of photographs disappearing mysteriously and of the site blinking out mid-paragraph. Essentially an entire morning of the computer behaving badly and me walking away in aggravation, eating a cookie and calming down, returning and trying again.  Eventually I won that round.  The previous Wednesday however, the computer won. There was no blogpost last Wednesday.

While I have endless patience with people I have very little with machinery of any kind.  Cars, vacuum cleaners, computers all aggravate me.  To be completely fair, I do not have a mechanical mind.  I can open it up and stare at it's innards saying,  "me oh my" but I have not the slightest idea what I'm looking at or what any of it means.  And I know that if I mess about with it too much, I can actually make it worse.  So all I can really do is complain, be aggravated and eat cookies.

Years ago, I worked in a hospital.  We were instructed, that if there were a computer problem we should contact that IT department.  Lovely people there, very smart people there.  So smart, in fact, that they speak and entirely different language than I do.  "You need to reboot your modem" they might say (actually I have no idea if that's a real thing or not)  "I have to do what now?"   I say in return, "What does that look like?  Where might I find it?  Is it bigger than a bread box?"  They would sigh and make the long walk all the way out to my wing and fix it in person, every single time.  I felt terrible and baked them cookies by way of apology.

Nowadays of course, if there is a problem and you call someone for help, they can fix it remotely.  I find it so bizarre to watch my computer screen do things without me.  It's creepy. Very 1984. I don't much like it.  But I sit and watch, while eating a cookie.

I guess my expectations are not realistic.  I am of the belief that machines are built to do a job.  And as long as they are properly maintained and treated kindly, they should do the job they were created for.  A to B.  A straight line.  Very mathematical.  Apparently this is not so.  That drives me crazy.  I get frustrated and aggravated and the cookies call me.

I don't know why my computer insists on behaving so badly.  It could be a poltergeist. A Ghost in the machine. A Trickster Computer who thinks it's hilarious to fool with me.  I don't find it remotely amusing.   But clearly I am not in charge here.  The computer and the cookies are in cahoots.

I find it ironic that there actually is something computer-ish called a cookie.  I know they can be enabled, which leads me to believe that they can also be disabled.  Unabled?  Whatever, if it's not an edible cookie, I don't much care.

Meanwhile, I will continue, each morning to approach my computer with trepidation.  What sort of computer day are we going to have today, hmmm?  We will stare each other down and see who flinches first.   If there is no blogpost, that means the computer won that day.  If there is one, have a cookie in my honour because that means that on that particular day, on that wonderful day, the victory was mine!

P.S. I had to completely recreate this post because the computer ate the original.