I’ve Died (a Slow Death) and Gone to Laptop Heaven

A few years ago I totally splurged on this super powerful Lenovo Titanium blah-blah-blah supposedly killer laptop. I needed a really good work computer, as I’ve been meaning to create some training videos for years now, but that computer was a big disappointment from day one. I’m not good at returning things, and by the time the 90-day warranty ran out, I was stuck with it.  It was mine, for better or worse.

So fast-forward to this summer, and I’m working with a roomful of future court reporters at San Antonio College. I’m installing software on these sweet little steno babies’ computers, and guess who has the oldest, nastiest, what-is-that — boogers-on-the-screen laptop in the whole room? I have a seven-year-old who likes to play Star Wars games and look up Lego missions on my computer, and when I was working at home, I don’t know why, but I hadn’t noticed all the chocolate milk smudges and cookie crumbs and slobber and who-knows-what that had accumulated on my overpriced titanium snotbook notebook.

Then I’m at the airport on my way to the Oklahoma Court Reporters convention, and I’m going through security, and a lady behind me asks me if that’s my thing on the floor. What thing is that? To my horror, I look where she is pointing, and it is my stinkin’ hard drive! Yes, the made-in-China plastic has broken and the heart of my little work machine is lying there on the floor at the airport. I’m so thankful when I get to Oklahoma and figure out what side goes up, get the drive back in position, and the laptop starts up again. Whew, that was close!

Okay. Now that should have been enough to send me to Best Buy for a replacement, but these days I spend so much money on airfare and hotel rooms that I just couldn’t quite bring myself to let go of the cash. And you know how when you pay too much for something, you feel obligated to keep it and make it work, no matter what? I guess that’s what it was.

The last straw was at the Texas convention. I’m up in front of a roomful of about 80 people, and I’m ready to start my class. I’m goofing off and visiting with reporters I haven’t seen since we worked together in the late ’80s, and my laptop was already plugged in up on the podium, so I wasn’t worried about a thing. Then I notice that the little audio/video guy is getting worked up into a lather, so I had to cut short my talk about old times to see what the problem was. Turns out my computer will not turn on at all. He’s got me hooked up to two huge screens, and nothing. No red light, no green light, nothing.

Sure enough, I look down on the floor next to our feet, and there it is. Every file I’ve created, every family picture, every email, business plan, invoice and receipt from the last several years is there in a dying piece of metal scrap the size of half a deck of cards. My laptop came with shock protection in case you drop it, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.  I just picked it up like nothing happened, popped it in right-side-up and got started on my class just in time.

But that was the end. Computers are kind of like men, you know. You think you’ve got a good one … finally you’ve found a keeper. But after a couple years, they become unreliable. Unresponsive. Slow. Temperamental.  You can hardly even take them out in public anymore.  You want to get a new one really bad, but that old clunker holds part of your history, and you just hate to have to start all over and break a new one in. And don’t you want to keep the old one around sometimes, just for emergencies? You never know, right?!

So I go online and order a new laptop, and I’m no good at math, but it seems it’s about one-fourth of the price of my limp old Lenovo. It’s beautiful. It’s shiny. It’s booger-free. No cereal remnants have fallen beneath the keys.

When I press the “on” button,” I don’t have time to get a workout in before all my desktop icons load. I go online. Click … the pages come up instantly. I vow to take care of this baby. This may be “the one.” I mean it this time. I’m in heaven!

Julie Samford