My Favorite Apple

“O homework, O homework, I hate you, you stink/I wish I could wash you away in the sink.” While I am long past the day when I was under the curse of homework assignments, I thought of Jack Prelutsky’s sentiments recently as I bemoaned the challenges of computer usage in the twenty-first century. Allow me to rant a bit.

Monday night, I came home from my new job with a dedicated number of hours to complete a conference presentation and an editing task, with my T-G column on the to-do list as well. The house was quiet, and I was eager to do the needed work, but as I opened my computer screen to Word, I could see the words, but couldn’t make any changes.  There was a very narrow ribbon at the top of the page that said something about my subscription, that I needed to renew it or make some other kind of action. What that action might be, I had no clue, and I was unable to click on the message.

For four precious hours, I watched the hands of the clock rotate as I tried to figure out what to do. Google didn’t help, my son was tied up (my go-to), and I was stuck, a thirsty girl standing in front of the Pepsi machine with a twenty- dollar bill. Finally, after facetiming with our son, we make sure I had a correct app, did needed updates, and who knows what else, and Dan helped me find an itty-bitty button to click on. I was back in business, but by then, ready for bed! “Computer, computer, I hate you, you stink!”

The week before my email hadn’t worked. I’m currently up to four email addresses: one for the seminary, one for my Salvation Army tasks, one for personal use, and the fourth my default for junk mail and other messages. When a store wants to send me coupons or I sign up for a drawing at the fair, I use my Juno account. I’ve had it for years, and even though I have to pay a bit for it each year, that address serves a useful purpose. 

Apparently, I only pay for 2GBs of storage through this email account, and I reached my maximum so couldn’t get any current messages until I deleted some old ones. Simply deleting emails on my laptop or phone, which I do regularly, didn’t remove them from cyberspace – I had to go on line and delete the 30,000+ emails that have been in limbo forever, without deleting ones I want to keep, thus requiring me to look at each one. “I wish I could wash you away in the sink . . .”

Think about it: the gift of e-mail allows us to have dear friends around the word who want to send us twelve million dollars from Sierra Leone because they’ve discovered they only have two days to live. Who would have known them without the blessing of the internet?

And how boring my life would be without those misspelled fake invoices for video games and the threats to expose my pornography viewing history unless I pay up, bit coin preferred. How could I possibly survive a day or more without a plea from my favorite candidate to donate so they can be in the next debate, or the ads for a puffy belly cure? Somebody must buy this stuff, but it’s not me.

I can just hear Dr. Phil asking me if I want some cheese with that whine. Thanks, readers, for letting me blow off steam. Yet what an amazing gift the computer is to us – especially when it works! I cannot imagine writing a book without internet access and the miracle of cut and paste. Computers have saved millions of trees, and claim to have made us smarter, although I’m not convinced. 

I’m not ready to return to typewriters and carbon paper, card files and encyclopedia volumes, so I’m offering a deal to my favorite Apple. I promise not to talk bad about you if you agree not to shut me out. Truce?