Those of you with the misfortune to follow me on Twitter will probably have heard me over the last few days, squawking randomly about the various weirdnesses being displayed by my laptop. It is as though it has spontaneously developed Free Will and is deliberately mocking me. I swear to god the machines are taking over. First, the back-light went and I was blogging literally in the dark for a day. Then for no reason whatsoever it suddenly righted itself. Then last night I was quietly lolling on my sofa, reading, when my Tweet notification thingy pinged. Only it didn’t just ping ping, it PINGED, and then went on PINGING in a continuous, ringing, toothache inducing siren. It was so loud my laptop was literally vibrating towards the edge of the table, threatening to eventually throw itself off the side. Completely freaked out, I stared uselessly at it for ages as one might a poltergeist throwing objects around the room, before finally turning it off at the main switch in a panic.
None of which would be so bad I suppose, were I not such a clueless Luddite. I mean I’m honestly not joking when I say that, for a woman with her own blog, I am just one small step above complete computer illiteracy. I would have a facebook fan page for example, if only I knew how to set one up. I have attempted to read advice on how to go about it but when, as is inevitable, it starts to go into detail about burning feeds and organising timelines and other such incomprehensibles, my eyes begin involuntarily to glaze over. I mean what is burning a flipping feed when it’s at home anyway?
I can tweet with the best of ‘em however. And last night I tweeted, in a tizz, that my laptop appeared to be losing the plot. “Think it may be about to die! OH BLOODY NO!” I twittered, as I am not one given to drama. And along came a very kind @jax2000 who tweeted back, “Have you made sure you’ve backed up all your stuff just in case?” At which point I immediately felt the fear. My blog. This dirty great albatross around my neck that I simultaneously love and hate but mostly love. So much work. So much time. What if my computer exploded and I lost my blog?
Despite tweeted assurances to the contrary I just couldn’t rest. I know, I thought. I will text someone I know who is techy. So I did:
Me: Help! My laptop is about to blow up. And apparently I’m supposed to back up all my stuff. Something to do with the hard-drive. If I lose my blog I will cry.
Them: Your blog isn’t in your laptop though.
Me: What?
Them: It’s on a server, hosting WordPress right?
Me: Eh? I don’t know what that means! Servers, hard-drives, none of it means dick to me. I don’t know how this stuff works, I just type words then hit the publish button.
Them: Look, your blog is fine. It’s out on the internet. You turn your computer off and it’s still there right? (I sensed that I was being spoken to veeery slowly, like one might speak to a traumatised puppy, or an amoeba.)
But anyway, phew. My blog wasn’t going to disappear into thin air. This was good. But my computer still had the air of a ticking time-bomb so this morning I called the local IT technician, or The Computer Fix-It Man as my inner six year old prefers to call him. The Computer Fix-It Man is a friendly sort; something of a village fixture really, who can often be seen driving through the valleys in his Fix-It van, waving to all the passers by. He knows everybody, and everybody knows him – such is the way of things around here.
Upon learning that my laptop was about to explode he came over sharpish, and after giving it a cursory once over, declared that in fact there wasn’t anything majorly wrong with it, but that it could probably do with a bit of a ‘clean up’ and a ‘service’. I see. My immediate feeling was of course one of relief, however this rather quickly and seamlessly morphed into a kind of stomach lurching panic as my mind began to race through all the conceivable combinations of embarrassments that Computer Fix-It Man could potentially uncover as he ‘cleaned up’ my computer.
Did he really need to know, for example, what inanities I had Twittered that day? Hmm, proooobably not. Would it benefit anyone for him to discover my fully paid up membership of Guardian Soulmates? On reflection, er… no. How about that I blogged… about Horndogs and cock pics? Nope, nope, and nope – he certainly didn’t need to know that. Oh my gosh, talking of cock pics, what about the one that might still be lurking in my deleted e-mails?? Definitely bloody not. And what about my occasional Cliterati habit? Oh Christ alive.
As I stood there, rictus grinned, saying, “Yes of course, a service, that would be great er… thanks”, I came quickly to the conclusion that the best course of action would simply be to hover. To keep an eye. Just to make him aware of my presence. So I busied myself with pretending to sort the laundry whilst every 0.7 seconds taking a furtive peek over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t come across anything compromising.
BUT. It then struck me that if he did see anything I would rather remained private, I didn’t actually want to be present for the inevitable awkwardness that would ensue. That would be even worse. Much better to give him the opportunity to at least pretend he hadn’t seen anything. So I legged it upstairs as though I’d been stung, mumbling something about needing to strip the beds. I then hopped about for the next half an hour imagining all the various ways in which one could commit social suicide.
“All done! Should be fine now.” His voice finally shot confidently up the stairs.
I walked down into the living room trying desperately not to appear sheepish. I felt my eyes narrow. Was he looking at me funny?
“How much do I owe you?”
“Thirty’ll be fine”. Said slowly, with a wink. A wink?! I racked my brains… was he normally a winker? I was positive he’d never winked at me before… but then again…
And so I am wondering with a tinge of paranoia this evening, whether computer fix-it men are bound by a clause of confidentiality. I am hoping so. Because if not, I may be forced to leave the country.
Oh god, I hate it when my brother has to fix my computer and laptop (he’s an IT engineer) for exactly the same reason!
Glad it’s not just me!
Do you have his phone number. Because I would pay handsomely for that information.
Not on your nelly! Although it did make me wonder whether computer fix-it men in fact developed deep and lasting insights into the human psyche through constantly stumbling across peoples dodgy internet histories. Perhaps they are the people to consult in times of social crisis. Perhaps they ‘know’ all there is to know about human motivation and desire. Hmm.
thank you for starting my day off so well
you had me laughing heartily, especially the tweet conversation!