Dream Machine

Oh, how I loathed the Beast. It had a 20-inch monitor that weighed at least 50 pounds and took up the entire surface of the desk. Underneath the desk squatted the CPU --- an antique that sounded rather like a lawn mower and ran about as fast as a couch.

And now, as I type upon its replacement, I look back with longing at my dear little Beastie. As loud and slow as it was, at least it was reliable. And friendly.

Unlike the Dream Machine.

For that is what I named it. The Beast's replacement. When Rob and I moved to Kansas to begin our life as "grown-ups" and not "students," one of my first major purchases was a new computer. With a flat-screen monitor. And super-fast features that I couldn't understand. I know it was a good computer because when my brother visited he looked at it and said so. (If you know my brother, you know what that means. Suffice it to say that it was a good computer.) And it was quiet, oh so quiet. This was the Lexus of computers. My Dream Machine.

Little did I know that beneath its sleek exterior lurked the soul of a malevolent, spiteful toad. It was sneaky. It was cunning. It was perfectly nasty. But, like so many villains, it knew to pretend to be my friend. So it flattered me by labeling me the "administrator." It numbed me with its bright screen and sweet sound system. And it popped up these cheerful reminders for me to "update" this or that, requesting my permission before executing various things to suit its fell purposes. I happily complied to its suggested updates, thinking that it knew best and I didn't want my computer to be lacking any vital updates.

Then the troubles started. I'd come into the room and the screen would suddenly go black, like children dashing for the bed when the mom comes to check if they're sleeping. Why wasn't it black already? It was supposed to be "sleeping." I guess the computer preferred to be awake. I shrugged it off, and the computer accepted its victory with greed. It liked to be left to its own devices, so became slow to open my programs. Often it would open up a program only to freeze right after I wrote something witty but before I was able to post it. The words "not responding" appeared after program names with startling frequency. Not a day went by without an infuriating freeze-up.

I used to turn the computer off when not in use, to save energy. The computer resented being turned off, so retaliated by taking a half hour to boot up. This became so frustrating to me that I left the computer on all the time, only turning it off when it was particularly naughty. Most alarmingly, sometimes even pushing the "off" button was insufficient and I had to unplug the whole machine from the wall. But for the most part, the computer was always on. And always running. Like a hamster on a wheel. I never figured out what the computer was doing. There would be no windows open, nothing going on, but the CPU will be whiz-clicking away, little lights blinking like mad. And, as if to rub arsenic in a raw gaping wound, the computer fan got loud, just like the Beast.

So I decided it had to stop. I think the computer could sense something coming when I started backing up my files onto an external hard drive. It told me the data transfer would take four hours. When it reached "5 seconds remaining," it remained at 5 seconds for 16 hours. Jerk.

And that brings us to the present. The data transfer has miraculously completed, and I am ready to wipe the Dream Machine clean and restore it to its original factory settings.

Blame Windows Vista if you want. Blame my own ignorance in dealing with computery stuff. But I know the truth. My computer is the devil. I'd better post this soon before the computer crashes aga