I may ask my doctor for a permanent prescription for anti-anxiety medication, or maybe just a heavy-duty tranquilizer. Last year at this time I had to buy and configure a new laptop starting at 6 pm the night before my early-morning flight to the annual 8-day retreat I host in Woodstock, because my laptop just gave up and died. Didn’t get to research, look for bargains, order what I wanted, etc. Got something I didn’t like for $1,300, which made me almost puke in the car as I sped back home from Best Buy to finish packing. BUT – I did save a little on cost anyway by getting a 500GB hard drive instead of my former 1TB, since I’d never even reached 500GB before so why pay extra for something I don’t need?
You guessed it; I maxed out my hard drive on Monday. Went out and got a laptop I DID like for about $500, just a couple bucks more than the cost of replacing the hard drive in the maxed-out laptop (I’d been persuaded to go with a solid state drive, stupidly expensive, back to regular hard drive, thank you). Then hey, no problem, I’m backed up to the cloud (iDrive) (I’m no dummy, ya know), so all I had to do was install iDrive on my new laptop and then open the app and click on “restore.” And make a couple of option choices in doing so. Jesus, it took 34 hours to run and complete. Agonizing. But hey, at least after only two days, all was well with the world again.
EXCEPT for HUMAN ERROR. What I did was, see, I actually did a restore back to the original maxed-out laptop. Because I chose an incorrect option. Because I’m an idiot. This I figured out after being quite rude to the tech guy at iDrive. I mean RUDE and ANGRY, until I finally understood what I’d done, at which point I became ASHAMED and HUMILIATED. The poor tech guy actually lost it after 45 minutes of dealing with me (he actually stopped calling me “ma’am” (gasp!) and started saying, angrily, “you do not understanding me!”; an unheard-of breach of tech-guy etiquette and, in retrospect, kind of funny, since 80% of our difficulty was his heavy accent and misuse of some words.) I’m kind of worried that he might have gone home that night and, you know, kicked the dog. I dunno. Karma, domino effect, kicking over the lantern in the barn… Ann causes the destruction of civilization as we know it.
I’m now in hour 22 of the restore to the NEW goddam laptop. 12 hours to go. If all goes well. If the havoc I have unleashed upon the world has not by then circled all the way around the globe and come back to bite me in the ass. You know, you can fly a third of the way around the world in less time than it takes to restore all my data to my laptop. So the karma thing could happen.
Please god, I am heartily sorry for all of my sins. I will say a thousand Hail Mary’s. (And hey, looks like I’ve got time since I’m sitting on my thumbs for the rest of this calendar day.) Just please, god, let my laptop come back to life.
Hi Ann! Loved this post as it is so spot on! I experienced a similar meltdown when my iMac suddenly and continually began spinning the “beachball of death.” Yes, it was an older model, and I kept pushing it to its limit. Anyway, transferring my photos and music to a new laptop was a white knuckle experience! It took so long, and the damn “are you sure?” messages put me into paralyzing indecision. Anyway, I stumbled my way through, and I now use the cloud, which would have saved me a bucketload of stress. Your post made me laugh and realize I’m not alone. Thank you, dear one! ?
Oh, Rosemary, what nice feedback! I’m so glad you liked the post, and especially that it made you laugh.