My laptop had to go to the electronic hospital over the weekend because I was finally fed up with a power cord trailing behind me everywhere I went around the house. The whole point of a lightweight, portable computer is to be able to whisk it from one location to another without being tethered, but my battery had given up it’s charge many months ago and I was down to about 30 minutes of usable life.
I waited so long because it didn’t feel like a need, especially since a new battery would cost about $175. I’d never spend that much fixing one of my old computers, but since my baby works almost as well as the day I got it and it’s 3 years old, I figured it was worth investing the money to bring back some of its former glory. Besides, the boys are getting to where they are fighting over who gets to use the computer for homework first, so at some point in the nearish future (or whenever a new model catches my eye), I may “need” to upgrade and give this one to the boys.
I went in to ask about a battery replacement and the guy said, “Sure. We don’t have the part here, so it will be 5 days.” I almost felt like a junkie when I asked, “Can’t I take the computer with me and bring it back when the part arrives?” It turns out that keeping my computer and opening it up was part of the process to guarantee that the correct battery was ordered, so I went home feeling a bit naked.
Since Josh was gone (and his computer with him) and I refuse to use the beast of a computer that the boys have (old, buggy PC that was blown up in Oman and salvaged, but never as good as before) because I’m spoiled by mine, I was computerless for 3 days. Thankfully the guys at the shop were fast! I still had my phone so I wasn’t entirely without contact with the outside world, but I hate doing any sort of serious reading or writing on my phone. So when I was home (which wasn’t much — the last 3 days have been ridiculous) I watched dumb Hallmark style Christmas movies on TV and knit. I knit an entire hat for Carter yesterday and Camille and I watched a version of Cinderella that subbed an MP3 player for the glass slipper. It was interesting.
I am such an information seeker (reader, researcher, rabbit trail wanderer) that I realized when I have the world at my fingertips it’s hard to put the computer down and focus entirely on something else. I’d always rather be multi-tasking (thus, the knitting and TV watching or the knitting and sports watching). But when my computer wasn’t in the house, the itch was gone. I didn’t feel restless or have withdrawals from Facebook. Life went on online and I was fine with that. News stories happened and I didn’t hear about them and no one died as a result (or maybe they did. I wouldn’t know since I didn’t have my Yahoo headlines). It guess it’s like having chocolate in the cupboards. If I know it’s there, it calls my name, but when the cupboard is bare, it’s easy enough to ignore.
I still plan to finish up my Crete stories, write about Calvin’s homecoming night, and spin the tale of my worst day ever (all is fine, the story is more of a comedy than a tragedy), but tonight I’m putting the computer away and going to bed early. Maybe . . .