I got up to make a cup of tea and I put my laptop on the floor. Somehow, it moved underneath my chair (a very soft chair, I should point out) and when I sat down again, the screen was smashed (even though it was shut). I was surprised at the fragility of it. I hadn’t been very careful with it in the many years I owned it. In fact, the cover was dented and scratched in multiple spots. But, that one little mistake cost me my old reliable machine.
And, here’s the thing; I am not technologically minded. In fact, I’m not any kind of logically minded!
Luckily, my son was visiting from Pennsylvania and he researched online for me for a new laptop. He talked about storage, screen size, memory, etc. and I didn’t understand a word of it. Finally, I gave him my credit card and said, “Here, go buy me something.”
He came home with a lovely, slender silver laptop that apparently had everything I needed. I tried to ignore it and kept using my old one. If you jiggled the screen just right you could kind of read around the cracks in the plasma screen. Eventually, my son took the new one out of its box, plugged it in and put it on my lap. It was clean and shiny and new and I kind of hated it. Nothing was familiar. Nothing was where I remembered it to be and I was lost.
After some tutorials from my kind son, I was able to get online and visit my favorite sites (after digging up old passwords to access them again). I was starting to acclimate to this strange new laptop. So, I decided to start writing again and that’s when everything went horrible awry.
It turns out my new machine didn’t come with Word or Office or whatever you call having the capability to write a simple missive on a typewriter-like machine. Who knew you have to buy that “right”? After literally days of debates between my husband and son (with more than a few angry and snide comments thrown in from me for good measure) I finally just bought Windows 10 from an easy pop-up on my screen. It was easy to install (thank God) and I figured I was home free. After weeks away from the keyboard I was finally going to be able to put my ramblings down on paper again.
I typed away, pleased with myself and my new machine, but when I looked up to see what I’d written there was a jumbled–up mess of words on the page! Apparently, my hands are expressive even when I type and my new laptop would insert my words in random patterns all over my text. The page made no sense and looked like it had been typed by a gorilla.
My poor son spent hours listening to me whine while he researched how to reduce the sensitivity of the touchpad. Every time we thought we had the answer, we’d run into a roadblock. Whatever buttons they told us to push did not exist on my particular machine. At one point, I may have stomped into my room like a baby yelling, “I’m never using that stupid machine again!” Nothing like a little mom–drama to ease tensions.
Once I calmed down, my son taught me how to turn the touchpad off when I type. It’s not a perfect solution but it works for now. I’m also trying to rein myself in from waving my hands around when the touchpad is turned on (which somehow goes against my nature) and so my new machine and I have reached a tenuous relationship.
I still have so much to learn and to be honest, I don’t want to. But, this complicated thing on my lap is a necessary evil in my life and I must learn to make peace with it.
So, if you don’t hear from me for a while just know that I am locked in a battle of wills: old woman vs. machine.
Only time will tell who will win.
Read more of Ann’s contributions to allmomdoes here.
