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A Desktop in Winter

My computer is dying.

Luckily for me, I bought a shiny new laptop a few weeks ago. So I won’t be left completely in the lurch when the desktop machine finally gives up the motherboard. That doesn’t make it any easier.

“I’m not sure Cartoon Network video clips and a Hello Kitty screensaver qualify as ‘essential software’.”

First, there’s the noise. It’s not just a loud noise; it’s frankly a little bit disturbing. I’ve had cranky fans and drives and power supplies before. Usually, when one of those goes south, it sounds like a motorboat, or an airplane taking off. This sounds more like a yodelling cow being fed through a wood chipper.

Not that I’d know what that sounds like, exactly. For one thing, it’s very difficult to train a cow to yodel. I’m just saying.

Meanwhile, I’m a little afraid to use the machine. Or for that matter, to walk into the room. The thing sounds possessed — who knows when it’ll decide to shoot a CD-ROM at me, or strangle me with a ribbon cable?

(To be fair, the ribbon cable is only three feet long. The computer couldn’t possibly choke me with that, though it might be cute to watch it try.

Those CDs could hurt, though. I saw Maximum Overdrive; I don’t trust that hunk of mooing metal as far as I could heave it. It’s been wanting to get its transistors on me ever since I put that cheap RAM into it to save some cash.

I should have realized something was up when the chips were labeled ‘memoree‘. I guess Play-Skool isn’t as reliable an electronics brand as I was led to believe. That’s the last time I take computer advice from Elmo.)

Anyway, I suppose it’s time to get all of my important files off the old girl before it’s too late. Now, if only I had important files. I’m not sure Cartoon Network video clips and a Hello Kitty screensaver qualify as ‘essential software’.

(I mean, um, I’m not sure Madden NFL and hard rock MP3s qualify. That’s it.

Oh, and porn. Lots and lots of porn. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

Whew. That was close.)

All I’m hoping now is that the damned computer lasts through the holidays. I can’t very well treat myself to a new computer for Christmas, when I’m supposed to be shopping for other people. Especially when everybody in my family’s getting a five-dollar bill and a bag of chips this year. I can defend that when I’m getting miserable crappy gifts, too. But if I buy a new computer, too, then I’m a Scrooge, not a Grinch.

And I like being a Grinch. I’ve got the dog already, and frankly, I’m allergic to ghosts. And poor children with crutches. And eighteenth-century England.

So that loud creaky box in the office will just have to limp along for another couple of weeks. That’s all there is to it. And when it’s finally appropriate and socially acceptable, I’ll replace the clunky thing.

I’m thinking December twenty-sixth. Say, ten a.m.? It’s a date.