This week was a disaster. Both my computer and mobile phone died within three days, raising the obvious question of me being cursed by modern technology – perhaps in retribution for the bitter tirades I unleash on it at regular intervals.
Luckily, I back up my computer religiously – abut once a year – so I only lost several thousand documents and emails and about a billion pictures. No biggie. Oh, and all my email addresses were zapped too, as I’d never worked out how to save them in a file. Ah well, I could always use the phone, right?
Well, no. Sadly my telephone numbers have been lost forever too, as apparently neither phones nor SIM cards are salvageable after ten minutes immersed in a boiling lamb casserole. The silly phone shouldn’t have been near the stove in the first place. I told it not to go there but it didn't listen. And it certainly doesn't listen now. It doesn't even ring, the stupid thing.
And unfortunately I don't remember anyone’s number except my own, and even that I have to look up occasionally. I don’t even know my husband’s work number. Why would I? I press the speed dial and there it is.
Still, losing all my contacts were just mere nuisances compared to the pain I underwent in order to get my technology (and life) up and running again.
First, I had to pay two professionals an exorbitant amount of money just to tell me that my beloved stupid gadgets were dead (yes, that will teach me to seek a second opinion).
Then I had to replace them. But with what? Clearly not with the brands I had previously, as THEY BROKE (okay, one broke with a little assistance, but still) so they were obviously USELESS. I needed different brands. And when I'm confronted with more than two options (for example, "chocolate or vanilla") my brain goes all fuzzy and everything starts to look the same. Or different. I can’t even tell anymore.
So I had to ask someone else what to get, and just stick with that, because god knows getting a second opinion didn’t work very well the last time. Then of course I had to find out the best price for what I'd been told to get, which I really had no energy for, because I was so emotionally drained from being told my gadgets were beyond saving that I couldn't bear to discuss it for another milisecond.
Nonethelesss, I did the research, found the best price, bought the new gadgets, took them home, discovered they were each missing the vital piece of equipment that would enable them to do what I needed them to do, returned to the store, bought the extra pieces of equipment at twice the price of the original items, brought them home, realized I had no idea how to install them, returned to the store, got the experts to install then, returned home, celebrated for about five minutes that everything was up and running and life could begin again, then decided it was all too much trouble, that I HATED technology, and that I was going off to live an organic, herbal, technology free life in the mountains.
Then my husband rang my new mobile with some great news, and my new laptop beeped with an email from a friend inviting me to a party, and all was well with the world.
