The Day the Laptop Died

My laptop had a stroke.
There were no warning signs. One minute all my gigahertz and jigawatts were working fine, and the next; nothing… nada… zippo. It wasn’t a sniffle or a snort.
It was sudden death.
Sensing that something really, really bad had happened, I immediately called my local Apple store to make an appointment with a Mac surgeon. Apparently though, there must have been some kind of laptop flu going around, because there were no appointments to be had.

“We can see you on Monday,” some very young sounding Mac geek told me.
“I can’t wait two days,” I pleaded. “I have an article to write… mails to send. I have to update my Facebook status!!!
“We do have openings for iPads,” he informed me.
“That would be fine… if there was a problem with my iPad!” I yelled. “Please, isn’t there a wait list I can get on or someone I can bribe with a Super Duper Mega Mocha Frapalatté, or something like that to get in?”
“Monday,” he said unsympathetically.
“FINE!!” I hung up the phone and seethed. I had gone through the five stages of grief in one phone call and yet I was till mad, and my laptop was still dead. For two days I wandered around my house in a laptop-less fog, occasionally checking in on my phone to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. But it wasn’t the same experience typing on virtual keys on a tiny little screen, especially when you have over-50 eyes, and you still don’t know what TikTok is.

Eventually, I just gave up altogether and ate chocolate.
“Hey honey, did you get my email?’ asked my husband when he called in the midst of my Mac-meltdown.
“No,” I cried. “I haven’t checked my emails because MY LAPTOP DIED!”
“Did you try running a disc utility and doing a permissions repair?” he asked me.
“Can I run with a cup of tea and blow dry my hair?” I asked him.

It wasn’t the same experience typing on virtual keys on a tiny little screen, especially when you have over-50 eyes, and you still don’t know what TikTok is.

“What are you talking about?” he said.
“I dunno? I thought that’s what you said,” I responded.
He sighed. I think he was beginning to understand just how much of a computer moron his wife really was.
Meanwhile, I was starting to realize that the possibility of a major repair could leave me without my computer for a week or more. And what if they had to wipe my whole computer and erase all my data and then I would lose all my stupid cat memes? There was no way one chocolate bar was going to do it. I was in for the whole Wonka factory.
Finally, Monday arrived. I checked my pulse to make sure I was still breathing and then I made my way to the Apple store. I waited patiently for my name to be called and then I approached the Genius Bar.
“So, what’s the problem here?” my genius asked me.
“My desktop froze and my keyboard isn’t working so I can’t get my email and I can’t get onto FACEBOOK and I think I’m gonna die!!!!” I blurted out in one breath.
He picked up the laptop, looked it over and then disappeared into the back. Five minutes later he came back with my laptop, all lit up and ready to go.
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s it,” he said.
“It’s fixed?” I asked incredulously.
“It’s fixed,” he assured me.
“Wow!! I am so relieved,” I said. “So, what was the problem, anyway?”
He smiled. “There was chocolate stuck under one of the keys.”

©️2021, Tracy Beckerman, Lost Media Entertainment, LLC.