As far back as I can remember, I’ve known how to use a computer. As a small child, I could run a floppy diskette program through DOS as easily as I could crack open an Easy Reader. (Some of you will not remember floppy diskettes, or Oregon Trail and its brethren, and that’s okay.) I never remember being taught things, not specifically. When I had a question, I’d ask. Mostly I would troubleshoot. When I was little, we had almost as many computers as people in my family. I remember watching my father solder circuit boards and thinking how cool it was that my dad knew how to build a computer from scratch. By the time computer class in elementary school was mandatory, I knew what I was doing — better than a lot of the girls. I was the only kid in one of my early computer classes who knew what Control-Alt-Delete did, using it like some kind of magic combination to unlock a frozen computer. This was never strange to me.
My parents gifted me with my first desktop computer at age twelve. It was built from a combination of new components and older ones my father had lying around the house, and I adored it. When we first got dial-up internet, we couldn’t hook up my computer, because there was no phone jack wired in my bedroom, but I didn’t need this slow, laborious thing called the internet. I just needed a word processor and Microsoft Encarta, and I was off, writing my first attempts at novels. That computer, without a CD drive, with a 15″ CRT monitor that was as heavy as the tower, lasted me through middle school and high school, until it finally started gasping its last breaths when I was a senior in high school. I loved that computer.
After that, the computer disasters started.
For college, my parents bought me a Toshiba laptop. In October of Freshman year, it imploded. Blue Screen of Death. It was two months old. Because it was so shiny, the thought of backing up my data had never occurred to me, especially not by October. I lost all of my documents and files for the start of Freshman year. I ended up having to send in my Toshiba to be serviced (it was under a 1 year warranty) and they wiped my harddrive. “An unexpected malfunction. You couldn’t have anticipated it,” they said. Once it was back in my care, I treated it better than any possession I had ever owned, and learned all I could about these kinds of mishaps to prevent one from ever happening again. Because this was at Carnegie Mellon, I was also surrounded by a horde of talented techy folks (both employed by CMU in their computer help center and not) who were willing to take a look, offer me advice, teach me a trick or two. By Sophomore year, I had it figured out. Then, in October of Sophomore year, almost a year after the first problem, there was a second. This one was an implosion. Irreparable. The harddrive made a sound like a dying cat. It was out of warranty and there was no hope. They told me it would be almost as much to repair it as replace it. So I bought an entirely new laptop, an HP.
The HP and I had some good times. I treated it well, always on a flat, clean surface, never leaving it in standby; I kept it clean of viruses and spyware, all of that. I knew computers. I understood the principles. I was as well-versed in the basics of troubleshooting as any amateur could be. So when Blue Screen of Death reappeared Junior year, I was ready. I had weekly backups of my data, some stored on the internet, some in hard copy. I had the original boot CDs and I was able to wipe and reinstall Windows and solve the problem all by myself. I never figured out why the Blue Screen was out to get me, but it seemed to be hunting me down. This time, I was ready, and it was hardly an issue worth crying over. Boom, problem solved.
One day, nary a few weeks before the end of the (free! Included!) 1 year warranty on the HP, I couldn’t turn on the computer. I started panicking. I’d done everything right. I called HP, and they told me it was an issue covered by warranty. I sent in the laptop to them. They sent it back, fixed. Data — irrecoverable. But I’d backed up. It was okay. Not something I could fix, again a problem out of my control, but it was still okay. It was fixed.
(Are we keeping track of the disasters? That’s two Blue Screens of Death and two implosions, in two computers.)
When I graduated from college, my gift was a spiffy and souped-up HP desktop. Their customer service had been top notch, but the laptop was outdated. I needed a new machine. I started a new regimen of regular back-ups and good practices (consistent harddrive crud wipes, spyware/anti-virus cleaners, etc.) and… in the course of the first year of ownership, I had two Blue Screens of Death. Windows wouldn’t load. It wouldn’t recognize pieces of its hardware. I went to bed one night having just shut down the perfectly fine computer, then woke up the next morning to a Blue Screen of Death. Inexplicable. Random. It was out to get me.
Two. In a year. One resulted in a malfunction of a piece of hardware. Snap, no more DVR capability. Thank you, HP. The other was almost comical in how much of a non-event it was. Still forced me to wipe and re-install Windows and I lost all of my data, but I’d been backing up. It wasn’t a catastrophe. I solved it myself. That did not stop the husband (then fiancé) from looking at me askance and suggesting maybe I stay away from his computer. Or maybe let him have the new computer to play with, and I’d take his college laptop. Just in case. Because it was clear to both of us that my curse was not going away.
Flash forward to April 2009. As a wedding gift to me, the husband purchased me a Dell netbook. I hadn’t had a spiffy laptop since the HP started its downhill age decline, and I needed something to take to cafes to write on. “It comes with a year of warranty,” he said, debating whether or not we needed to invest in more. Compared to the cost of a netbook, buying the warranty was exorbitant. “Well,” the husband said, “If something implodes, it will happen in the first year.” Statistically, that has always been the case, I thought. Always. “Yep. One year is good,” I agreed. I’d dealt with having to send in both the Toshiba and the HP while they were under warranty in that first year of ownership. I had a track record. This was going to be fine.
In April 2010, two weeks after the warranty on the Dell expired, it decided it was going to make a MMRHHHHHMRHHHHHMRHHH sound one day instead of booting up. I called Dell. They told me my laptop was a goner, that if I was under warranty they might be able to do something, but it’s pretty much dead anyway. Sorry.
I turned to the husband, in tears. “I am cursed with computers. CURSED. I treat them well. I know what I am doing. I am techier than most English majors! What is wrong with me?!”
We discussed it and agreed, well, maybe it was finally the time to convert to a Mac.
I’d resisted because of the price tag but also because of my track record with computers. Something always happens. Always. But Macs have a track record, too. Their harddrives don’t implode randomly. There is no such thing as a Mac OS Blue Screen of Death. No such thing. This… overjoyed me. That, and I’d been obsessing over their product design for years, and every Mac owner I knew was immensely happy with their purchase.
We purchased the Mac in May 2010. During the checkout process, the husband says, “AppleCare protection plan. What do you think? None? One year? Three years?” I stared at him. “What do you think?” We bought a three-year plan.
Yesterday afternoon, at about 5:35pm, the six-month-old kitten was in a crazy mood, one in which she must pounce at all inanimate objects in the apartment as a point of asserting her dominance. I was in the kitchen, grabbing a drink, when I saw her pouncing on the bed. I also saw I had a flashing message on the laptop screen from the husband, at the desk just past the bed. I went over to the laptop, set my drink down, and answered the message. The kitten chose that moment to pounce, jumping across the desk — and knocking over my drink, spilling it across the MacBook Pro’s keyboard.
I stared in dumbfounded disbelief as the screen went dark and the liquid pooled on top of the keys. Then I leapt into action. I pulled the plugs, wrapped it in a hastily-grabbed towel, and submitted a request to Apple for service within three minutes. (The other desktop was on; shh, we’re techy people.) Apple called me immediately. “How are you doing today, Erin?” the service man asked cheerfully. “Five minutes ago, I was great,” I told him. “Then my cat spilled my drink across my keyboard. I’m not doing too well right now.”
He talked me through it, getting me to direct a fan at the keys, telling me not to panic, that even if the motherboard got fried, it’s totally fixable, and my harddrive is undoubtedly safe and secure. He made an appointment with a specialist at the Apple Store for this weekend, warning me to keep the fan on the keyboard for the next 24-48 hours. I giggled, with relief, and told him how happy I am that I invested in the AppleCare Protection Plan. “Oh, by the way, this isn’t covered under your AppleCare Protection Plan,” he said. “Spills, or drops, any sort of accident. We only cover hardware malfunctions.”
Blue Screen of Death, I think, where are you when I need you? Windows machines and my luck with your consistent harddrive failures, where are you?
In reality, I started crying. The Apple guy went a little quiet, talking about the weather, asking what it’s like in New York. “Warm,” I told him. “That’s nice,” he said. “So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a writer,” I said. There was silence on the line. I could almost feel the Apple guy connecting my profession with the gurgling MacBook Pro in the corner. He could probably hear my sniffling as I started mentally calculating the cost of fixing this, out of warranty, when all we bought the warranty for was to protect us against the unexpected — this, in a way. But we hadn’t thought we’d adopt a kitten when we bought the Mac, never dreamed we’d have an accident like this. Then the Apple guy said, “Well, um, your appointment is all set. Good luck.” We hung up.
When I stared at the laptop, filled with sticky beverage, tiny desk fan set on its frame whirring quietly, I started bawling. Crying as if I’d lost a family member. To my embarrassment, I’ve cried every time I’ve lost a computer. When the netbook died, it was like I’d lost a limb, an extension of my arm, like all of my writing went with it, despite its safety net. This time, though, was the first time with the kitten. The little, innocent perpetrator of the accident. I was bawling, standing in the kitchen, feeling completely helpless, and the kitten wandered up along the countertop and put her paws on my shoulder, sniffing at these things called tears. I realized I hadn’t yet cried in front of her. What reason would I have had? She started licking the tears off of my cheeks and it could have been scripted, it was so adorable. (Then, an hour later, she tracked poop from her litter box across the apartment floor… then across the cream-colored bed linens… necessitating a bath that neither of us wanted to endure. Yep, she’s a kitten, all right.)
I’m cursed when it comes to computers. Ever since that first laptop purchase, they’ve broken on me. In warranty, out of warranty, problem not covered under warranty. There’s no explanation to this string of bad computer luck. The husband, even techier than I am, is confounded. Our families shake their heads and remind us that so long as the data’s backed up, it’s only a tool, not the living entity I keep thinking my computers are. It’s funny. Some people are into cars, or into designer clothes, or into tasteful art — we’re into computers. And I have a black thumb when it comes to them. What luck.
I hope Apple can fix my computer this weekend. I’ll keep you updated.
