Technological Impatience

My laptop died a couple of days ago. I shut it down before I went to bed and when I turned it on the next morning it was broken beyond repair. It was totally healthy when I shut it down and then with no provocation, it just gave it up and died. So my husband has spent the last two days trying everything he could think of to get it working again without having to totally re-install everything. I managed to get all the most important stuff off and onto a jump drive before it died completely, but he still ended up having to re-install the entire operating system and start from scratch. This laptop is about two years old, so maybe if this were the first time we’ve had to do this I would have been a wee bit more patience with it. But this is the FOURTH time we’ve had to either re-install the operating system or restore the whole fucking thing to factory condition. FOURTH!!! That’s just ridiculous. I mean there are all sorts of conditions that would have given me more tolerance for a hiccup here and there. But this sucker was new when I bought it so one would think that I’d get a bit more mileage out of it. Let’s just say that the Mac vs. PC commercials now have a whole new meaning for me.

I have a hard time summoning patience with technology is most cases anyway. I just (naively I suppose) expect it to work. So when there are glitches in my DVD player, or the TV or my iPod or my computer it just really pisses me off. It. Should. Just. Work. All. The. Time. Period.

And when it doesn’t, my husband just shakes his head and laughs (quietly) at my irritation and tries to fix it as quickly as possible so that he doesn’t have to listen to me bitch endlessly about how stupid some electronic device is or isn’t. So I’m glad for his tolerance of my lack of patience.

But I swear to all that is holy that if my computer fucks up again, I am throwing the sucker through the window.