Hmmm, which of us will reach obsolete status first?
It occurred to me today that my laptop and I have a lot in common. I never thought I would be likening myself to a piece of technology. But the resemblances are now too obvious to ignore.
We have both been around the block a few times and have battle scars to prove it. I have gray hair, a surgically chopped and reattached colon and wrinkles in places too numerous to mention. My laptop’s J key sticks, its’ E key is completely obscured and its touch pad has something resembling a black hole on it.
My energy level is a pale comparison to what it once was and has clearly defined limits. My laptop’s battery is dead, quite literally dead, meaning it cannot function without being plugged into a power source.
The pace at which I go about my business has geared down several levels. Now and then I get a spurt of energy which makes me feel young again. But that is an illusion. My laptop takes inordinately long to boot up and is painfully slow. Occasionally it has a good day and responds promptly. But that is just a tease.
My wonky back gripes at me every day, even though I treat it to weekly chiropractic treatments, and occasionally threatens to lock up. My laptop feels aggrieved when overtaxed and periodically freezes in the midst of routine functions.
New technology is the bane of my existence. I cannot keep up with it, avoid it when possible and achieve only baseline competence when I must adapt to it.
My laptop does not handle new versions of software well. Your Office product is no longer supported has been displaying at the top of the screen for quite some time. My laptop and I both willfully ignore it because we know that neither one of us is up to the upgrade. We live in fear of the Important Updates are Pending notice.
I avoid going online until I have to because of all the threats that lie waiting there to strike: viruses, malware, ransomware and phishing e-mails. My laptop lives in mortal fear of these digital evils knowing full well that contracting one would be its demise.
I am 18 months out from retirement, cannot wait to get there but regularly wonder if I will make it to the finish line before I am put out to pasture. My laptop is long past its expiry date, longs for the day when it will be shut down forever and worries that the big crash will come first.
My laptop and I have a love-hate relationship. I am completely dependent upon it and begrudge the fact. I also regularly curse it out for operating poorly. It responds by operating even more slowly and sometimes takes ridiculously long to shut down just to spite me.
There will come a time when I have to retire my Pavilion g series. It will be a sad day when that happens. We have woven many metaphors together and, notwithstanding our constant bickering, we are uncommonly fond of one another.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the old girl will beat the odds to outlive me and have the last laugh before she succumbs to digital senility.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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Tags: laptop · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · obsolete · retirementNo Comments