She left me without a word, MS Word that is...
She left me without a word, MS Word that is...
The love affair ended badly.
Asexual, yet nonetheless a love affair. I’d pursued my object of lust for what seems like months. Seeking the perfection that comes only in one’s imagination, never in real life.
My perusal of the Internet’s nigh on to pornographic images stretched far too long, clicking from one performance enhanced ad to the next. Fingers quivering as my eyes caressed the sleek bodies appearing, one after the other, before my longing eyes.
“Yes. Yes, that’s the one I need.” The Dell XPS 13. Just two and a half pounds. Tiny footprint. Fast. And the sleek curves of polished aluminum awaiting my caress. I can take it anywhere. It’ll be the inspiration of that great American novel that’s sitting locked in my brain awaiting the right hammer and chisel to carve the stonecutter’s lump into David.
Tap in the American Express number, hit “Enter” and three days later she appears. Yes, it’s now a she. Anxious as a teen aged boy awaiting a Friday night date, the time crawled as slowly as Algebra class as I peered out the upstairs window for the brown UPS truck.
“She’s here!” I rushed down the front staircase never touching the polished dark oak banister, flinging open the door to grab the brown cardboard box emblazoned with the Dell logo that porch pirates love to see as they cruise suburban streets seeking prizes left on front porches.
First, the cardboard packaging, then the protective Styrofoam slipped off like a prom dress under the urgency of my seeking fingers. Frustration halted my fumbling exploration with the inability to insert the male USB into a willing female receptacle. The discovery was like a porch light flashing on. Lust evaporated. Perhaps she’s not the one for me.
I groaned with frustration knowing it would be more days of waiting, even with Amazon Prime.
A quick search reveals a USB C to A adapter can be had for $17.99 (free shipping of course). Delivery in a day! Admit it, you’ve got to love Jeff Bezos sometimes. Ooh, ooh here’s an ultralightweight, tiny wireless keyboard, perfect for those times when you want the laptop on the desk and the keyboard in your lap. Yes! Yes! And here’s a wireless mouse. Must have that too! Trembling fingers once again key in the AmEx security code to satisfy the aching need.
Yet again, cardboard boxes miraculously appear at doorstep. Stripping away the packaging, I’m secure in the knowledge that it may no longer be prom night, but it’s at least Saturday night at the drive-in theater with my new date.
Slipping in the USB adapter, I’m nearing home plate as the dongles click into place. My fingers search for the power button. Yes, yes, I’ve found it! The glow is there! The screen comes to life.
The words ready to gush out, only to be thwarted by mother Microsoft demanding the key code before she’ll allow me to possess her daughter Word. Hopelessly entangled in the mesh of conflicting demands I realize my inexperience will never satisfy the grueling questions inflicted upon me to possess my beloved.
I surrender. I take the object of my desires to the wise ones who serve mother Microsoft. Confessing my inadequacies, I implore them to prepare my bride.
The honeymoon must wait. “We can have her back to you in a coupla days,” the greasy haired, skinny kid with glasses tells me. His pasty white hands take possession of my love to carry her into the dark recesses filled with workbenches littered with the carcasses of fallen machines. He will know her before I will.
The first day, no call. The second day, no call. Four-thirty pm, I break my vow of silence and call. “Yeah, you can pick it up. We close at 5:30.”
She’s back! She’s back in my arms again! I’ll forgive her. It was all just a misunderstanding. Another hundred and fifty bucks but we’ll make beautiful words together.
And we did. For a while. She started acting odd. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, but I knew she wasn’t right. She’d forget my passwords. She wouldn’t let me read my email. I loved her yet, but did she care about me? Although warranty long expired, her beauty still aroused the words longing to come out.
I tapped the mouse to bring her to life. No response. No warm glow. No subtle hum as I caressed her. Desperately I pushed the power button, time and again. Nada.
“Maybe the screen died.” I plugged a monitor into the gaping HDMI port. You know, the big one next to the USB ports. Right there on the $17.99 adapter. Nothing.
Cringing, I carried my baby to the car and drove the three dozen blocks to the still computer carcass littered shop. Same skinny, bespectacled kid. I explained the symptoms to the unsympathetic surgeon.
“It’ll be a hundred fifty bucks to check it out,” came his response. I went on to tell him I’d plugged a monitor in, yet still nothing. “Oh, well, that means the motherboard is fried. There’s nothing I can do,” came the death sentence.
“Plugging in a monitor is where I’d start, so since you’ve already done that, I’ll save you a hundred fifty bucks and tell you to get a new one.”
How could she do this to me? I’ve loved her. I’ve never abused her. Well, yes, I’ve cheated on her. I’ve used the desktop at my office. And the desktop at our weekend cottage. And yes, they’re not sleek, expensive Dells like her. They’re just generic looking Lenovo black boxes. But they meant nothing to me. They weren’t sleek and sexy like she was. They were just tools to get a job done. She didn’t care.
She’d never cared. She just soaked up my caressing fingertips and batted her electronic eyes through all those Zoom meetings. It was over.
Despairing at my loss, I asked “Do you have any Dells in stock?”
“Nope, we’re just an authorized Dell repair site. We only carry Lenovo ThinkPad laptops.”
“Can you get everything off her and onto the ThinkPad?”
“Sure, we can do that. Take me a couple days. We’re pretty backed up.”
Lenovo ThinkPad. The successor to IBM. Chinese owned. But assembled in North Carolina. Dell nominally a US company but, of course, it’s laptops are made in China, like so much else we buy.
In spite of her beauty, she was heartless. She abandoned me. I abandoned her. “What are the specs on the ThinkPad?”
“She’s faster than that Dell you got. It’s got an upgraded processor.”
“I’ll take it.” No shopping the Internet. No seeking the lightest, sleekest, sexiest object of my desire. I’m over that.
“Do you want the Dell back or do you want us to recycle it?”
“Will you purge the hard drive?”
“We destroy the hard drive for you before we recycle it.”
I didn’t say it, but I thought it, “Good, she deserves it.”
“Make sure you do,” I muttered to the kid who would rip the brain out of my former love.
The hulking black ThinkPad sits before me, power button blinking to remind me the power is on and awaiting my touch. It’s not a pretty machine. It’s the workhorse laptop carried by tens of thousands of corporate road warriors, mid-level military officers and government bureaucrats, in their ubiquitous black ballistic cloth briefcases, toted through airports large and small around the world. Sexy she’s not. But work she will. It’s still a she. As my grandmother used to say: “Good lookin’ don’t last, good cookin’ do”.
I still get the emails from Dell promising a love affair. I delete them without looking.
(c) William L. Enyart, 2021
Email: bill@billenyart.com