There was a time when I was a fairly agreeable person. Buying a computer has changed all of that. I must confess at the onset that I have had a long, well documented history of fighting against all forms of scientific progress. It began years ago with the introduction of the pressure cooker, advanced to the steam iron, color TV, and finally to the micro-wave oven. Grudgingly, I accepted all of these so-called “improvements” into my life.
Nobody forced me to buy a computer. I got into this mess all by myself. In the past it was peer pressure that made me succumb to those other inventions. Nobody made me feel like a backward thinker, or a miserly kind of person, for not owning a computer. Nobody nagged me into buying one.
My troubles started when I joined the Pen Women a couple of years ago. Soon I was busy writing all sorts of stuff, essays, limericks and similar nonsense. All of this in pencil, on a big yellow pad. At some expense and bother, I usually sent it off to be typed. Arthritis had made it very difficult to use a typewriter. After some encouragement from the group, I graduated to writing a three part memoir, and started work on a novel. I had the opposite of writer’s cramp. Call it writer’s tic. Long distance communications between me and that nice (but unknown) typist in Westchester were obviously too complicated for a work of such length. It was time to learn how to use a computer.
First, I had to buy one. My grandson, David Hendricks, agreed to help me with the selection at a huge computer store. A very sleek looking lap-top Sony appealed to me. It had a marked-down price, a real plus, and the keys (light grey) looked less intimidating. We also walked out with the cheapest of printers and a large yellow book called “Windows XP for Dummies”. David set up the machine, told me to read the first twenty or thirty pages of the yellow book, then departed. He seemed extremely relieved when I told him of my plan to take the computer course at the Senior Center.
The “Dummy” book seems to have been written by a failed writer of gags for a TV show. I imagine the purpose of the book was to calm an over-emotional response from a frustrated user like me, but frankly, when I’m angry and frustrated I’m in no mood for coyness or humor. At more relaxed moments, when I’m not at war with the computer, the book seems very funny. For example, in Chapter 3, the terms “dragging and dropping” are described as follows: Although the term drag and drop sounds as if it’s straight out of a Sopranos episode, it’s really a non-violent mouse trick. The very name “Mouse” for the little gimmick that flits about the screen as a pointer, is comical. I can just hear the inventor wondering what to call the thing, then exclaiming, “with its pointed nose and long wired ‘tail’, it looks just like a mouse!” I wish that the other terms were as simple. Even the machine itself seems, at times, sympathetic to the user’s confusion. The other day when I unsuccessfully tried to “download” some holiday pictures of my great-grand children, a mysterious white square appeared on the screen warning me: some files can harm your computer. If the file information looks suspicious, do not open or save this file. As far as I’m concerned, the whole damned machine is untrustworthy. I wasn’t asking for the moon, just a look at three little children in their Halloween costumes.
How could one trust an instrument that works perfectly for days, typing yards and yards of a novel, then suddenly flashes a blank screen? Fortunately, when this happened, during the early days of our relationship, I had not yet mastered the art of composing on the computer, so the text was still on my trusty yellow pad, but it was one of those temperament changing times in my life. Gone was the sweet nature I once had. Despite help from friends and family, I never recaptured all those pages. It seems that, in my enthusiasm, I had neglected to click on the “save” icon. (By the way, I always thought that “icons” were dreary religious pictures on the walls of Orthodox Greek churches.)
Perhaps I have been unfair to my computer. It obviously has a good heart, seen a lot of suffering in the computer world, and tries to console me. If you feel you have been more than patient, then try this…it counsels. Yet, how can one understand the extraordinary caprices of the instrument? Suddenly, its clock will switch to Pacific time, or the font color will turn red. True, I have lost most of my former terror of losing my work, but I feel like a wife who has been betrayed. The trust has gone.
Ironically, just as I was writing these words, my screen went white, and some stupid message nagged me about a “Fire wall.” Whatever that is — no thank you.
The Norse believe in Trolls, the Irish, in fairy folk. I believe in a paper-thin creature, with huge eyes and a sardonic smile, who lives in my computer. His name is Rumplestiltskin.
My War With My Computer
There was a time when I was a fairly agreeable person. Buying a computer has changed all of that. I must confess at the onset that I have had a long, well documented history of fighting against all forms of scientific progress. It began years ago with the introduction of the pressure cooker, advanced to the steam iron, color TV, and finally to the micro-wave oven. Grudgingly, I accepted all of these so-called “improvements” into my life.
Nobody forced me to buy a computer. I got into this mess all by myself. In the past it was peer pressure that made me succumb to those other inventions. Nobody made me feel like a backward thinker, or a miserly kind of person, for not owning a computer. Nobody nagged me into buying one.
My troubles started when I joined the Pen Women a couple of years ago. Soon I was busy writing all sorts of stuff, essays, limericks and similar nonsense. All of this in pencil, on a big yellow pad. At some expense and bother, I usually sent it off to be typed. Arthritis had made it very difficult to use a typewriter. After some encouragement from the group, I graduated to writing a three part memoir, and started work on a novel. I had the opposite of writer’s cramp. Call it writer’s tic. Long distance communications between me and that nice (but unknown) typist in Westchester were obviously too complicated for a work of such length. It was time to learn how to use a computer.
First, I had to buy one. My grandson, David Hendricks, agreed to help me with the selection at a huge computer store. A very sleek looking lap-top Sony appealed to me. It had a marked-down price, a real plus, and the keys (light grey) looked less intimidating. We also walked out with the cheapest of printers and a large yellow book called “Windows XP for Dummies”. David set up the machine, told me to read the first twenty or thirty pages of the yellow book, then departed. He seemed extremely relieved when I told him of my plan to take the computer course at the Senior Center.
The “Dummy” book seems to have been written by a failed writer of gags for a TV show. I imagine the purpose of the book was to calm an over-emotional response from a frustrated user like me, but frankly, when I’m angry and frustrated I’m in no mood for coyness or humor. At more relaxed moments, when I’m not at war with the computer,
the book seems very funny. For example, in Chapter 3, the terms “dragging and dropping” are described as follows: Although the term drag and drop sounds as if it’s straight out of a Sopranos episode, it’s really a non-violent mouse trick. The very name “Mouse” for the little gimmick that flits about the screen as a pointer, is comical. I can just hear the inventor wondering what to call the thing, then exclaiming, “with its pointed nose and long wired ‘tail’, it looks just like a mouse!” I wish that the other terms were as simple. Even the machine itself seems, at times, sympathetic to the user’s confusion. The other day when I unsuccessfully tried to “download” some holiday pictures of my great-grand children, a mysterious white square appeared on the screen warning me: some files can harm your computer. If the file information looks suspicious, do not open or save this file. As far as I’m concerned, the whole damned machine is untrustworthy. I wasn’t asking for the moon, just a look at three little children in their Halloween costumes.
How could one trust an instrument that works perfectly for days, typing yards and yards of a novel, then suddenly flashes a blank screen? Fortunately, when this happened, during the early days of our relationship, I had not yet mastered the art of composing on the computer, so the text was still on my trusty yellow pad, but it was one of those temperament changing times in my life. Gone was the sweet nature I once had. Despite help from friends and family, I never recaptured all those pages. It seems that, in my enthusiasm, I had neglected to click on the “save” icon. (By the way, I always thought that “icons” were dreary religious pictures on the walls of Orthodox Greek churches.)
Perhaps I have been unfair to my computer. It obviously has a good heart, seen a lot of suffering in the computer world, and tries to console me. If you feel you have been more than patient, then try this…it counsels. Yet, how can one understand the extraordinary caprices of the instrument? Suddenly, its clock will switch to Pacific time, or the font color will turn red. True, I have lost most of my former terror of losing my work, but I feel like a wife who has been betrayed. The trust has gone.
Ironically, just as I was writing these words, my screen went white, and some stupid message nagged me about a “Fire wall.” Whatever that is — no thank you.
The Norse believe in Trolls, the Irish, in fairy folk. I believe in a paper-thin creature, with huge eyes and a sardonic smile, who lives in my computer. His name is Rumplestiltskin.
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