A Modern Tragedy

Posted by Cynical Sarah on March 16, 2006

Last week, the most horrifying, terrible thing that could happen in our happy home happened – my computer died.
It was a sad event that started with the hint of a strange smell wafting into our bedroom Wednesday evening. It was a scary kind of smell. You know the kind – the smell of something electrical or plastic getting too hot.

My hubby got up to check it out, and by the time I joined him, I could tell by the look on his face it was something serious. Nothing creates sadness for a man who works with computers and computer programs all day like having to face fixing one at home.

My computer was dead – now it was a matter of figuring out how dead. So for those of you that actually stop by my site on a regular basis (Hi Mom!), that’s why there wasn’t an update on the site on Friday.

At first, my hubby was worried that there could have been a case fire so we didn’t open the case right away. But when we finally did, the diagnosis was the power supply had burned up.

I’m not hardware literate at all. My only thought was that if this computer was completely dead, I’d just lost all my work on my Web site, my resume and all the writing I’d done and pictures I’d taken during the past year. That’s pretty much like a year of my life just disappearing.

I desperately needed the computer to be fixable so I wouldn’t lose all that, and lose my main means of entertainment.

You’d think it wouldn’t be that big of a deal in home that also has another complete system as well as a server set up. But this was MY computer with all MY stuff and no backup to be found. Not to mention that the hubby is a bit territorial with his own computer and when he’s using it there’s no prying him away to do something as insignificant as checking e-mail or writing in a blog.

But I digress. On Thursday, I wrote down the exact make and model of a new power supply to get at the computer store and braved buying parts to get what I needed. By now I’m almost on a first name basis with the guys at the store anyway. I’ve been there three times to buy new cords and mouses after the cat chewed through some of them.

Only in some fantasy land would my computer problems be that easily fixed though. I hate having to use my poor husband for all things computer related, but thank goodness for him. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to replace the power supply, and then when that didn’t fix the problem anyway, I would have been totally lost.

Picture me throwing a fit and just giving up on everything I had on it. Or maybe I would have tried the advice I was given by the tech guy at my last job when my computer didn’t want to boot up – “Just open it up and bang on the hard drive to unstick it.” It was at that point that I lost faith in most computer guys anyway.

I really should learn a little more about computers and how they work. As it is right now, restarting or opening it up and banging on the hard drive are my only “fix it” solutions. It would be nice to not be so helpless and always have to rely on a tech guy.

The next step was purchasing a replacement motherboard. I probably could have handled buying it, but there’s no way I would have trusted myself to install it and get everything hooked back up to it again without breaking something. It was interesting to watch though as the hubby spread pieces of computer all over the living room and then re-assembled it like a puzzle. ‘

The miracle of all miracles was that it worked. There was not a happier person than I was Friday and Saturday as software was being reinstalled, and we were able to recover all my files. So Cynical Sarah will live on without me having to rebuild the entire site, and I can go back to killing boredom with article and blog writing without having to beg, borrow or steal time on another computer.

- Sarah L. Polson

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