Technology

Technology. While it is an amazing time saver and can do things we never thought possible, when it doesn't do what it is supposed to, is there anything more frustrating? The day before yesterday, for some reason known only to it, my laptop decided it didn't like me anymore and without warning, stopped working. In the midst of typing a document, it kindly told me it was not going to respond anymore and it wasn't kidding. It wouldn't do anything.

Now if there a more frightening sentence to see at the top of a computer screen then I haven't seen it.  As I looked at the half a dozen or so documents I had open at the time, it filled me with dread. I am the first to admit I don't know much about the working of computers in general but even I know that you shouldn't shut down a computer with things still open because you can lose any unsaved work. So what was I to do? I couldn't close anything because it wasn't responding and the only way I knew to attempt to remedy that was to shut it down and reboot. Disaster.

So to say I was worried would be an understatement. But with no other course of action open to me, I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and prayed that all would be well as I pushed the button to restart. I don't think I even breathed for the few second it took for it to boot up, then I felt like crying as it seemed my worst fears had been confirmed. Instead of the usual messages indicating it was starting in the normal manner I got a window saying the computer had problems starting and was attempting to repair any problems. AHHHH. This looked worse than losing anything I'd just been working on and hadn't saved. It might mean losing anything I'd done since I last backed up. I hadn't done a back up for five days. AHHHH.

As panic set in and I was struggling to work out what to do, in walked my saviour. He'd know what to do. He could always fix my computer problems. In handing it over to him, I felt better already. However it turned out this problem was even beyond him, and as I began to hyperventilate, I madly tried to retype all I could remember on another computer.

But after a sleepless night, luckily with the light of a new day, came hope, in the guise of an expert. With his advanced knowledge and skill, not to mention a bag of magic discs, he had things back on track within minutes. My computer started up as normal and all my documents were still there, safe and sound. I let out a breath I had been holding since the night before, on a sigh. All was right with the world again. Or so I thought. As the expert went off to rescue someone else, fighting the good fight against the trials of a fickle technology, I was ready to start work again. I settled myself down, laptop on my knee and clicked on a document, itching to pick up where I'd left off, ready to let my imagination have free reign so that my fingers could follow. But what do I get, an error message, AHHHH. I hate computers.