COMPUTERS, MORONS, AND CRIMINALS

This is a true story. I wish it weren't.

I don’t know if you can relate to this, but I’ve undergone a plethora of computer malfunctions. They not only remained unrepaired by three different computer “experts” but were made worse by them.

I sent one computer to warranty repair with a minor software problem and a power plug whose USB tip fell off. They sent it back to me with – I stopped counting at 14 – defects THEY created which the computer never had before. Plus they glued back – never mind sending me a replacement – the broken USB tip of the power cable which promptly fell off seconds after I plugged it into the port. Not that it mattered. The computer turned out to be inoperable.

So I lugged it and my spare computer to a one-man shop called “Computer Help”, the purpose being to transfer my data to the spare. To make a long story short, I wrote him a Yelp review which started off with the sentence that he should rename his business “COMPUTER HELL”. Now neither of my computers worked.

Then I safaried to a repair shop in the city where I used to live. I’d patronized it several times before and experienced great service. The lady who owned it had gone to an Ivy League college where she’d majored in IT. In addition to that, she had lots of certifications and lots of experience. Her uncredentialed husband, who’d learned from her, worked in the business, too.

On my arrival I was disappointed to learn that she was “on vacation” . Moreover her husband admitted he had “no idea” when she’d be back.  She’d already been out of the country for five weeks.

I couldn’t wait for her to get back.  As a professional writer I needed my computer fixed. Pronto. What would my boss, Kevin Jackson, think about my hiatus?  And I couldn’t disappoint my Kevin Jackson Network readers either.

Every day that went by I seesawed between torturing myself by wondering why my computer wasn’t ready yet, and comforting myself, by telling myself that the prolonged repair time was due to the fact that hubby was overburdened doing the work of two people.

I periodically telephoned to politely inquire if my computer was ready. Let’s face it. I realized I was actually more interested in finding out the latest in this marriage soap opera.

Finally my computers were ready.

Hoping for the best, I eagerly arrived to pick them up. Guess what? It happened to be the first day the wife was back.

She walked in sporting a huge, gorgeous, intricate, and very expensive-looking bracelet which I most effusively admired. She confided to me with a tender smile that it had been hand-fabricated expressly for her by her meditation “teacher” with whom she had been “studying” during her (five-plus may I remind you) weeks abroad. Hah! I can imagine what else he did with his hands and other body parts for her.

Chatting merrily to me, she wouldn’t even look at or speak to her husband except to hiss at him that he had effed up my computers.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m no fortune-teller but I do not prognosticate a long life for their business. Or their marriage. So I shan’t be going back there.

Anyhow I still don’t have a computer expert. My wonderful one whom I had for 21 years suffered a heart attack and closed his business.

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That’s not the only technological snafu in my life.

Did I mention that Satan resides in my iPhone?

I am of the mind – and you cannot convince me otherwise, so don’t even try – that all cellulars (and computers) should have the same serial number. That’s regardless of make, model, and year of manufacture. And that number is 666.  Do you know why? Because they don’t need technical support. They need a f–king exorcist!!!!

Honestly, people, I never drop cellulars or any other kinds of computers. Never subject them to extremes of temperature. Never drop liquids on them or into them. Nor do I mistreat them in any way.  I even name them, for God’s sake! My first ones I ever got I christened “Compton the Computer” and “Preston the Printer”.

Believe me when I say I know several people who’ve dropped their cellulars into the toilet. More than once. And the wretched things work fine.

I know of people who have thrown their laptops at their soon-not-to-be Significant Others, missed, and hit walls.  No problem.

Why me, Lord?

I’ve been done wrong, folks. Somebody must pay. Shouldn’t there be capital punishment for computer technicians who wreck customers’ computers?

What’s a poor, frustrated  girl to do when she has visions of revenge sugar plums dancing in her head, if I may paraphrase lines from “A Visit From St. Nicholas”. Are you familiar with that nice Christmas poem by Clement Clarke Moore?

I dunno. Surely, I could go to Cicero, Illinois, the city where Al Capone’s headquarters used to be. I wonder if I could have found a moustache (a “made man” for those of you not in the know) or a nice gumba willing to do me a “favor“.  Do you think that my asking to borrow a pair of cement Gucci loafers might be too much of an imposition? After all, I’m not even Italian. But in my favor I did go through a whole year in college where I refused to date a guy unless his last name ended in a vowel. That was my Italian Period. But I digress.

I must cease and desist this vengeful wishful thinking. My parents brought me up to be an upstanding person who doesn’t break the law.  But even if I hadn’t been brought up right, John Gotti’s hangout, The Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in New York’s Little Italy, is no longer in existence. I know. I checked.

But for now all I can think of is the title of that Broadway smash hit: “STOP THE WORLD! I WANT TO GET OFF!”

 

 

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