When you need to reboot, you need to reboot.
I, like I suspect most other PC users, have a healthy disrespect for the wishes and desires of my computer. Even if its occasional propositions are in the best interests of the longevity of the machine, I ignore it. I don’t calibrate the printer cartridges. I don’t download the newest version of software until entreaties turn to shrieks. I click past license agreements with reckless abandon. I’m a rebel…as far as Bill Gates is concerned. My technological procrastination is the stuff of epic poems.
Case in Point: My new green and shiny computadora is fast and highly evolved. I do love her, but it was less than a week of having her out of the cardboard box she came in before we had our first lover’s spat.
Observe (the close approximation of the) transcript….
Computer: We’ve found a fanastic new update with which to further safeguard your computer from inscrupulous thieves!
Me: Fuck off.
Computer: You don’t want it?
Me: Maybe later.
Computer: How much later?
Me: Later, dude. I’m busy.
Computer: Found another update to enhance your video!
Me: Kiss my ass.
Computer: Excuse me?
Me: you heard me. You’re brand new. What possibly needs updating?
Computer: Technology is an ever changing, evolving at the speed of light….
Me: Get bent.
Computer: I need to power off and reboot.
Me: So do I. Yet I tary on. Computer, there is no need to be shrill.
Computer: At 3:30 in the morning, I notice. You should go to sleep. (no, it didn’t say that. My shiny new computer has a touch of the passive aggressive.)
Me: ::type, type, type::
Computer: Au Revoir, suckah
ME: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Lesson dutifully learned, shiny green love dollop of mine. When you say you’re going down, you’re going down. I will endeavor to believe you in the future.
A good reboot is excellent salve and should be embraced. As exhibited above, submission to the whim of the reboot will save some measure of tragedy. A policy that applies elsewhere in my life, to be sure. So you’d think I’d learn. You’d think…
Let me explain. Every couple of years, my brain calls a timeout. My body parts lose a game of freeze tag. Circulatory blood flow to joints and other such sundries that hold me upright take a ten second holiday.
In short, I pass out.
I know. How very, very Victorian of me.
Before any of you suggest I see a doctor, I will ask you to imagine walking into the doctor’s office and asking him to investigate a phenomenon that happens only every three or four years. It’s a reboot. Plain and simple.
Admittedly, there are warning signs, but true to my nature, I ignore them entirely. As a result, my body does pick the absolutely most inconvenient times to blink out.
Elementary school – 20 yrs ago
Location: In a line with my fellow classmates, traversing the hallways on the way to lunch.
One minute I was staring at the freckled neck of the child walking in front of me. The very next thing I knew I was staring at the mold stained ceiling panels and offensive fluorescent lighting to the hushed whispers of a passel of my fellow eight-year-olds –”iz she DEAD?”
Pros: Parents were called. I was fetched and spent the rest of the afternoon ensconced on the sofa watching ‘toons.
Cons: Missed recess. Damn. Did NOT miss math test. Double damn.
Highschool – 12 yrs ago
Location: hallway on the way from lunch to choir class
I felt lightheaded, and had the rather ingenious plan of steering myself right into the biggest, best looking football player I could find. Said football player took it upon himself to accompany me to the office. A phone call was put through, and I was home free.
Pros: Can you say, Rhett Butler? Also, avoided face to floor contact.
Cons: Completely freaked out my friends.
Denison University – 8 yrs ago
Location: Walking to my dorm amidst the construction of the ever-expanding campus.
Denison was undergoing quite a bit of cosmetic and utilitarian construction and the lay of the land was peppered with guard rails and yellow tape. I beaned out straight into an unobliging patch of gravel. A young missionary escorted me to the nearest bathroom facility and talked about Jesus while I picked gravel out of the hamburger that was my hands.
Cons: The worst of the damage was done to my left, not my right hand. To my professor’s grand relief, I could still take my exams with my wrist brace on. My hands took weeks to heal and eventually had to go to the doctor to discover…
Pros: I’m allergic to Neosporin. I know that now. Thanks, body.
Prague – 6 yrs ago
Location: Outside The Globe—used English bookstore/music venue amongst a group of fellow ex-pat friends who had just attended a concert with me.
I went down onto the bricks with little ceremony. Blinked up into the eyes of people who were, no doubt, trying to reach a consensus on how to scream for an ambulance in Czech. One friend took it upon himself to slap me across the cheek, and when everyone demanded to know the motivation for that particular course of action, he cited several movies where it was effective.
Cons: I got slapped.
Pros: Roommates felt illogically guilty and bought me pizza.
Romania – 3 yrs ago
Location: The bridge to the road leading back into town from Solomon’s Rocks.
I had just victoriously scaled a waterfall of sorts in loafers and feeling extremely pleased with not getting myself mangled on the very sharp rocks. I was a good five feet from the solid road back into town before I ate dirt.
Cons: I had to hobble home on a crappy ankle.
Pros: My perseverance won me an auspicious title of badassery from a Swiss girl.
Akron, Ohio – last week
Location: Front hall of my parents house. Through a collapsible doggy fence and onto the wood floor.
Ouch. I’m old now, and do not recover from nose dives with nearly the same resilience. After lying on the floor for several minutes, I hoisted myself up and sniffled while my parents looked on shaking their heads.
Pros: I managed to not 1) break the fence, 2) spill my purse 3) crack my brains open on the door jam
Cons: My knees hate me. They write me daily letters filled with their rancorous bile. If it were possible, I believe they’d secede from the union.
******
Ah, body. Ah, computer. Reboot, if you must. It’s not how you hit the floor, it’s how you dig the gravel from your palms, claw your way up a door jam, and make icy peace treaties with your knees. The fall is irrelevant. How far can you walk on a bum ankle? Can you freak out a large group of eight year olds? How many Swiss people have made you their god?
Make it work for you, ask for help when you need it, and do your best not to panic loved ones.
Above all, remember this: Dignity is over-valued.
