An Inconvenient Goof - 216
Hal Wastes His Wages!
January 16, 2007

Boy, did that hurt.

While carrying my laptop around my cluttered apartment I tripped and dropped it, resulting in a cracked screen and one of the loudest obscenities ever to be orally broadcast in the lower Park Avenue area (maybe you heard it?). I spent nearly ten minutes just standing over the flickering carnage, frozen in a fit of fear, anger, resentment, despair, disbelief, chest discomfort, arm numbness, headache, nausea and eventual sadness. It laid there like a corpse that had died with its eyes open, and while you can vividly recall the existence of life that was there not a moment ago, you know in your heart that life is now gone. I felt a similar pain about a year and a half ago after I gleefully smashed a particularly faulty cell phone, realizing only a split second later that I had just destroyed the sole source of telecommunication I owned. But with the cell phone it was different, since that piece of crap had it coming. My poor computer, on the other hand, was an innocent victim of circumstance.

Of course this was the week before Christmas, so luckily I had nothing but piles of extra money just lying around to be spent on an emergency like this. I canvassed my techie friends, all of whom assured me that since my computer was less than a year old it was still under warranty. So I took it to the store where I bought it, expecting them to benevolently repair it for free. That’s when I learned the nifty little fact that a cracked screen apparently nullifies a warranty. Furthermore, it would cost me $50 just to get it looked at.

Meanwhile, the technological inconvenience served as another blow to the system as I was without my e-fix for nearly three weeks. How did I manage in the interim? I had to sneak into my roommate’s room and use his computer while he was at work. No craigslist, no ebaumsworld, no “other” sites—strictly in and out for email. I would sometimes go days without checking it, thereby missing out on all the online specials for discount erectile dysfunction pills I apparently so desperately need. Only last week did I finally get to see SNL’s “A Special Christmas Box,” and I totally missed out on the footage of Saddam’s hanging. Of course, as a writer I was doubly paralyzed, since we all know nothing has ever been written in the history of mankind without using a computer.

In the end, it would cost nearly as much to fix the computer as it did to buy it. Sure, I could have just bought a new computer, but then I would lose all the files I had on my current one. Sure, I could have backed up those files and not worry about it, and next time I plan on mistakenly dropping my computer I will do just that. Sure, you can tell me I’m a fool for not having done so before, but I can also tell you that you’re the umpteenth @$$#*!& to point that out to me. Just assume the untimely rape of my wallet would serve as reminder enough.

For weeks I suffered the loss, listlessly idle as the world passed me by. But now I’ve got my baby back, and my plan is to get to work and set about to finish all the amazing, earth changing projects I had been kept from for so long—right after I check out that clip of the crazy midget fight from Springer on youtube.

O brave new world!!!

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