View from the North 40: Friendless in these dark times

Oh, woe is me in these dark days.

A darkness, black and cold as the long nights of winter has settled into my heart, stolen my life, my livelihood, my reason for Internetting.

As if the prospect of waiting nearly five months for my next paid holiday hasn't been weighing heavily enough on my heart, my desire to go on, I now suffer the lack of my dear friend, co-worker and creative companion, Computer.

Oh, Computer, my beautiful workhorse, your keys are stilled, your speakers silenced, your screen deadened to blackness, your on-light offed. Your power supply is failed.

While you sit lifeless and in pieces, your cover set aside to expose your inner workings, I sit at the portable computer, poorly poor substitute that it is, checking the progress of your replacement part.

01-06 13:34:44 Shipment information sent to FedEx

01-06 22:43:14 Arrived FedEx location Southhaven, Mississippi

01-07 01:13:51 Departed Southhaven, Mississippi

I am a betrayer, writing on this other computing device. Will you know, once revived, I've been with another computer? Will you smell the residue on my fingertips of peanut butter and jelly on toast which my husband eats while surfing the Internet and answering emails each morning — so different from the cereal and milk which is our morning ritual.

Will it matter to you that I hate every moment of this interaction? That my thumbs constantly hit the mouse pad and jump the cursor randomly up and down my document while I type, so I end up having to extensively edit phrases like: “I am a betrayer, writing ump the cursor randomlon this other computery up”?

Will it matter that I hate that it took me an hour to figure out how to click, hold and drag the pointer so I could play solitaire properly? That this other machine lacks our personal customizations that make us so compatible?

Will it matter to you that I was forced by modern times to this betrayal with another computer while you were lying there incapacitated?

I would've handwritten my column — I swear I would have — but the newspaper won't accept such “primitive” submissions. It would be like taking a horse and buggy to town these days. I could get there just fine, but then I wouldn't have anywhere to hitch the rig and everyone would be pitching a big hairy fit over the manure.

I long for you daily in each passing minute. I get up frequently from whatever task is at hand to go see you, maybe Google some information, maybe find a funny cat or greatest car crash fails video (those Russians are cuh-razy drivers and every one of them has a dash camera, just for our amusement).

The long dark evenings drag interminably, and I get to work depressingly on time each morning, without you.

These are dark days, dark days indeed, my friend.

As I wrap up this column, my only hope is this:

01-07 18:13:01 Arrived FedEx location Kansas City, Kansas

That as I sleep, your replacement part is hurtling toward us in the dark. That by morning light it will be in-state.

Will it, in fact reach me by end of day Friday? If not, will FedEx deliver Saturday?

I long for us to be together again, in our office, at our desk, watching, maybe, a video of a purring cat, cuddled up to a pig on the floor, gently petting its paw down the pig's face for one minute and 31 seconds, soothing the piggy to sleep.

Computer! Dear Computer, be strong. As the gods are my witness, we will restart you.

(Update: 01-08 00:31:24 Departed FedEx location Kansas City, Kansas, for [email protected].)