Hard disc-ography

Computers are great when they work…and a pain when they don’t. Yeah, right. Tell us something we don’t know!


My brand, spanking new laptop – which I dearly love – is now a sicko. Yesterday, and perhaps in anticipation of the dreaded Friday the 13th, the hard drive decided to go for a spin in the ozone. I was in the middle of work, punching out some articles, when Drive Baby decided to exercise some independent thinking.


Ughh. The laptop isn’t even three months old, and this is the second component – and here’s an intuitive obviosity: the most critical part of the computer – I’ve had to replace since I purchased it. I’m not going to name the manufacturer, whose products I’ve had a long history of purchasing. But it gives me pause to think what I will do inside of two more short years when this computer will once again be replaced.


Oh, the joys and sorrows of our technologically-undependable lives! With all the computers I’ve owned, this is the first time I’ve had a hard drive crash. Oddly, I took the event with a stoic grain of salt. After all, what else is there to do? The pulling out of one’s hair isn’t a particularly useful action as one gets older (we must respect and cherish each of our hair follicles to the greatest possible extent, as one day they may choose to engage in a Houdini-esque disappearing act). Slamming something around wasn’t particularly appealing, since I know I’d have to clean the mess up afterward. And, actually, that kind of response just isn’t me.


Perhaps you can imagine the inner turmoil after being on the phone with the company’s Tech Support department for two hours trouble shooting this and trouble shooting that. The defining moment – and it was indeed a teensy slice of time – came at the tail end when the tech had me perform a hard disc check in diagnostic mode. And then came the news: “replace hard disc.”


HUH?


I know there are worse messages one can receive in life. I say this because I had intended this blog entry to be about my father, who died three years ago in a fluke accident. He was near and dear to me, and there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t missed him. I can replace a hard disc; I can’t replace my dad.


When my dad died, it really left a huge hole in my heart. He was the man who taught me how to tie my shoelaces when I was a kid. He didn’t tell me to make two bunny ears and twist them together. He just showed me how to do it. On Feb. 8, as a way to remember him, I tied my sneaker laces the way he showed me so many years ago.


He was the man who left me sitting on the curb crying at the age of four because he forgot to pick me up for my ballet lesson. There I was, in my leotard and tights and ballet case balling my eyes out in public. For the rest of his life, I could reduce my dad to a puddle when I reminded him about that. It became a shared source of amusement for us.


He rushed me to the emergency room years ago, only to have a doctor tell him my blood pressure was so unstable he didn’t know if I would survive surgery. I remember the look of panic on his face. I remember realizing how much he loved me. And I remember looking up from the gurney at the Armstrong acoustic tile on the ceiling wondering if this would be the last thing I’d ever see on this earth.


When I was a kid, I managed to smash my thumb in the door of our Pontiac. My dad, not sure what to do to calm a screaming child down, took me into a beauty shop full of women who were skilled at this art.


Yes, I take the hard drive crash in stride because I know that I can fix this in a few days.