My Computer's in the ICU

I’m dead in the water.

My computer has crashed and today my car is in the shop.

I’m writing this on my laptop which yes, I’m lucky to have, but all my files are on my PC. Now I’m staring at a hole in my cabinet where the tower used to be.

Four days ago, my operating system expired. I rushed it to Computer ICU – the garage of my great geek-boy - so he could perform his magic medicine and revive the poor ol’ thing. The first thing I needed to know was the status of my files.

“Are they still there?” I asked, fearing the answer. “Tell me I can sleep tonight.”

“You can sleep,” he said, and that was about it. He’s a geek of few words.

“What’s the prognosis?” I queried further.

“Good,” he said, ‘but it’ll take some time…”

“How long?” I asked.

He explained in few words that he was going to strip the old hard drive, excise it and install another operating system and all the programs onto the additional, younger drive that he had placed in the tower two years before.

“How long?’ I repeated.

“Um…Thursday,” he ventured.

Six days? I thought. Will I make it?

I had no choice.

Over the next three days, when I told people what had happened, they offered condolences and said they hoped that my computer recovered soon.

They shook their heads and shared stories of sickly computers, hard drives that crashed, viruses that played havoc with their systems or worse yet – destroyed the host.

So maybe my situation wasn’t so bad. I stopped feeling sorry for myself -- until yesterday. That's when the engine light on my dashboard lit up. My 12-year-old Toyota was running fine, but I knew the light meant that I had to take it to the car doctor for diagnosis.

The charge for walking through the door was $119 because the mechanic had to hook the car into a computer that would tell him what needed to be done. He called later to tell me something about valves and the exhaust and corroded battery cables. I was too afraid to ask how much it would cost because I’ll have to pay, regardless of the tab.

So without a car and a computer, what woud I do?

I had a bit of paperwork to complete, a couple of letters to write and some (paper) files to clean – and some time to reflect on life without my two biggest necessities.

I’m sure I’ll live, too, but it won’t be easy.

By the way, the tab for car was about $565. It was much less for the computer. God bless the geek.

Do you have any stories of being techno-deprived?

What did you and your workmates do when the computers system went down?

Are there times when you feel too dependent on technology?

Tell us – and we’ll commiserate together.