Computers and Swimsuits

Yep, I'm in trouble...again. I sure have some loyal, and slightly frightening, readers. And they know where I live. (See Shelly, I'm typing, I'm typing!) So let's skip the mea culpa and get right to my latest adventure.

This past month my adorable pink laptop started acting up. I love my pink laptop. I love everything about it, so I felt a deep sense of betrayal when it started to freeze, shut down and send me nasty error messages. I was good to this laptop...unlike it's predecessor where I actually divotted the keyboard with my fingernail driven typing style. Personally, I think it was a wimpy keyboard, but that's beside the point. I treated Pinkie the laptop well and this is how she repaid me.

So when Major Dad came home for a weekend visit, I mentioned that my computer was acting up. Now this phrase is the computer geek equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a perpetually irritated bull, so he scooped Pinkie up faster than my kids grab candy and got to work. Not five minutes later Pinkie sputtered her last breath and gave him the blue screen of death.

And because I am a kind and supportive wife I immediately said, "What did you do?"

So the next day we packed up the kidlets and went computer shopping. Sigh. I detest, despise and dread computer shopping. It's right up there with swimsuit shopping. Both make me feel like a clumsy hippo in a ballet class. No fun at all. Major Dad however, as a professional computer dude, loves it. Best Buy is like Disneyland for him. So as I'm dragging my feet across the parking lot and asking questions like "Is Pinkie really, REALLY dead or just mostly dead?", Major Dad is skipping happily toward the big blue Best Buy building (in a manly, Marine Corps way of course).

And Major Dad drags me straight to the Mac section and starts showing off all the cool Apples goodies with an annoying twinkle in his eye. Meanwhile I'm fussing and grumbling and generally being a big baby about it. I didn't like the Mac Books because of the keyboard set up (the keys are too far way for my little elf hands) and the sharp edges on the casings. Yes, that was my reason. When I tried to explain that to Major Dad he blinked in stunned disbelief a few times and then told me I could get any computer I wanted...even if it was a PC (though I'm pretty sure he nearly choked on the words).

Well, no luck that day. So we went home and had a long talk that night about what I want and need a computer to do (not die would be a good start) and we went back the All Things Electronic haven the following day.

So now, my friends, I am mostly happy to say that I am typing on my brand new....iMac. Not a laptop, but it has an awesome monitor and a cool new track pad. And hubby says if I divot this keyboard it will be easy to replace. Of course getting a desktop computer meant rearranging three rooms in the basement, moving a desk and emptying, relocating and refilling four bookcases in order to get it in the right place. And guess who did the heavy lifting? It wasn't intentional revenge, but it did make me feel better.