gratitude-a-thon day 51: the genius bar

Fuck and shit.  And damn and hell. And all the other bad words you can think of. Is there anything worse than when you get the spinny ball of death on your laptop? Yes, why yes there is. It’s called the black screen. Which is what happens when your computer crashes. As in, crash lands into the trash heap pile of all those near and  dearly departed laptops who’s last beep, ding, or crumple of paper sound was made right before they went into a permanent sleep.

 Well, yesterday, after watching the spinny ball for a while, my computer ceased breathing. Time of death: approximately 4:38. The screen went black and my stomach lurched like a real person had passed on. How could I feel so deeply horrible and emotionally pained at the thought of losing my computer, a machine with no heart or soul? I’ll tell you how, and perhaps you’ll understand. I DONT’ BACK UP REGULARLY. I am not a good backer upper. NO, I don’t generally fly with a back up plan. So, when i saw the screen of doom, I knew it could mean much more than the loss of my original MacBook Air. It meant the loss of years of my work. (Not to mention at least four in-progress gratitude-a-thons.)

 And so it was with sadness in my heart and terror in my wallet, that I made my Genius Bar appointment and waited. It didn’t take long for the Genius to announce that my hard drive had indeed moved onto greener pastures. I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. And while the poor Genius was smart, he had not been trained to handle a sobbing woman who has just experienced a profound loss. Shouldn’t he have pulled out some Tequila and allowed me to swig a shot? Wasn’t it a bar, after all?  He did ask me if I needed a minute, but a minute wasn’t going to touch the grief. But alas, I had things to decide. Decisions to make. Did I want to bring it to another private company who may be able to retrieve my information? Did I want them to replace the hard drive?  Did I want to stab myself in the eye with a fork for not having taken seriously a message that appeared a week ago, which i cavalierly ignored, because I was too busy and not technically savvy enough to heed: “Your Startup Disk is Full.” Could this have been the beginning of the demise of my computer? Could this have been the warning sign? The gateway drug? I asked some questions, none of them probably made much sense, although this is what one does when a loved one dies. My Genius answered sympathetically. I decided against the expensive retrieval options, and started looking at replacement models. Yes, just like that, not dead for more than a day, and I was into an upgrade. Before the power cord was even cold….I had two really great guys work with me to make the right decisions and answer all my inane questions. They were young guys, and really smart and very sweet to me, which an old and widow, like me really appreciated.

I went with another MacBook Air. It’s being christened right now, with this post. I’m so grateful that I have another chance to start again. I will be going for my first One on One lesson today. I will learn to care for this Mac properly and I bought something called Time Capsule, which is a wireless back-up, which seems like I would want, even if I didn’t have a computer, it’s such a good product. Anyway, there it is. May my old MacBook rest in peace. Along with all my work from the past five years. Shit. Fuck. Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me, I’m still grieving.