I was in a terrible accident today from which I emerged unscathed and without going into too much detail, there came a point where I had to decide whether to save my computer or the life of the person next to me. I chose to save the person, and I have to say, I’m really glad I did. Saving a person is a much more gratifying experience. They’re so appreciative.
That, in particular, is the main advantage over saving a computer. Because it would be very convenient so save the computer instead. For instance, now that I have lost my computer I have to replace it and migrate my backup files to the new machine – it’s really not the greatest thing. It’s fairly irritating, I would say. It’s not like it’s nothing. Because where am I going to get the money to buy a new– well, nevermind. The point is, if I had chosen to save my computer, what would I have? A computer. A thankless machine, unconscious, unpraising, ungrateful. This person, on the other hand, has all but dedicated his life to me, he wants to give me money, give me thanks for the gift (life) I have given him! With a computer, the concept of it doing those things just plain doesn’t make sense, because computers aren’t even self-aware, for crying out loud. They only have the intelligence of…what…a stupid kid!
I’m glad I’m going to be in the paper for all this, too. The guy I saved might be a little bit in a volatile state of mind so you can’t take all the things he says at face value, but I think it’s fair to say that in this situation I behaved heroically, so it follows that, insofar as these events are concerned, I am a hero, and that guy, Ronald or something, maybe (Ronald? not sure), really helped me see that. So thank you Ronald (or Donald? Bonald, Fonald, Gonald, no, you can’t go down the alphabet with Ronald) for the boost you have given me. I mean it! I feel really good.
Oh hey, look at the time. I told that reporter I would have a photo to him in an hour. And you know, I look really good right now – my cheeks are rosy with adventure or whatever – so I think I may set up the digital and have a little photo shoot. Thank goodness for digital, huh? Gotta love digital.
Now I understand that notebook computers get a little dirty sometimes. It’s not like I’m saying you can’t get anything on your computer. Even mine is pretty dirty sometimes. Well that’s not true, I actively try to prevent anything from getting on it and I polish it regularly – but that’s just me – the smooth aluminum keys on my Powerbook feel much more futuristic when they are particularly clean and shiny. I like to run my fingers over its metallic smoothness and that helps me imagine more realistically what it might be like to be on a spaceship. All I’m saying is that I only keep a clean computer because the present is such an irritating drag, and indulging my futuristic imagination is all I have – not because I’m some kind of anal-retentive germophobe.
What an awful phrase – anal retentive. I have many qualities that might be considered anal retentive, but that is the last phrase I would ever use to describe them. I prefer obsessive. Obsessive has an intelligent mystique to it – where does it come from, how is it so controlling, and where will it lead the afflicted obsessor? Who knows, but probably somewhere, and, with any luck, somewhere bad. Anal retentive is none of that – it’s all drippy nosed, bespectacled, sweater-vested, and Jewish.
In any case 1) anal-retention is not what this piece is about and 2) don’t call me anal retentive. I will probably react with some amount of good humor but know that I will be picturing your grisly murder through it all. I’m just saying. People always think I’m not picturing their grisly murders because I’m very polite and well spoken, but much of the time I am. Especially when they call me anal retentive or abbreviate it as “anal.”
God, the last thing a person who actually is anal retentive wants to think about is the anus! It’s torture!
Moving on: notebooks get dirty. I’m a big boy and I don’t care about a little dirt.
With some people, though, it seems like they are on a mission to make their computers as scummy as they can. See their monitor covered in dust and then spattered with some kind of non-water liquid so that it coagulated the dust in the spatter-zone and dried there, frozen, raised ever so slightly, a tenth of a millimeter above the screen, glassy.
And if you should glance at the keyboard, you would see the chunks, some small and booger-sized, others larger, meatier, denser, brown, even – could it be fudge? I get a flash of what this person might have been doing that resulted in their computer looking the way it does. Perhaps they were just sitting there, picking their nose, and since they knew themselves to be alone, didn’t even feel the need to dispose of the booger, and next thing you know, A is the boogey-key, an atrocity they probably have no recollection of committing. ‘Hmm,’ they undoubtedly think. ‘Something is crusty there. Must be nothing. After all, I’m me, and nothing about me is gross to me because I am me, so I’ll just leave it, trusting that it is just some kind of gargantuan dust that became affixed to my computer as though it were some sort of booger, which it clearly is not since that would be gross and I’m not gross because I’m me.’ We all think these things, or some variation. The only difference is not all of us put insidious organic matter on our computers.
Those mousepads get pretty terrible too. Like a watery pond, a circle of grease forms in the center of the pad, swimming out almost to the edges. The lights overhead reflect in it. I touch my fingers and it is almost warm with it’s human content. Could it be that this mousepond originates from a sweaty finger? And there are two reasons I can think a finger might be sweaty. One is that the finger used for the mousepad was actually sweating. The other…well, that sweat came from somewhere.
I always accuse my friend Steve of cooking on his computer because that’s what it looks like – all slopped and sprinkled as it constantly is. “I cleaned it,” Steve will say, as my fingers traverse a topography of almost-Braille, and I shudder at what my fingers read. You see, “cooking” is just a euphemism I employ because I am something of a prude when it comes to giving phrase to things I’d rather keep locked up unspoken. It’s agony every time I check my email. I feel like my hands, in the grime, are, by proxy, all over all the worst places of his body at its filthiest. I know I’m not too far off, too. For a damn fact. Steve and I are very close and know too much about each other to casually use each other’s computers without letting the mind wander down those dank and sweaty tunnels. Steve is a dirty bugger a lot of the time, and I mean dirty and bugger in every sense of the words. I just hold my breath, try and keep my eyes on the screen, and imagine myself in a tropical utopia or traveling through intergalactic space. It keeps the mind of the matter, the organic matter, which has traveled to his computer from the deepest reaches of the deepest reaches.
It just occurred to me that I might be breaking some kind of silent rule here, but I think we should all take a second and acknowledge that people’s computers come swimming with some pretty scummy crap. Or let’s not, rather. It might make you think twice before using someone else’s computer. Because I know I’m not chomping at the bit to put my hands all over everyone else’s residues, and that’s not just the obsessions speaking. Sometimes it amazes me that we use each other’s computers as casually as we do.
Which is not to propose we should stop using each others computers. I mean – you gotta check your email, right?
Oh, you gotta check your email? Go ahead. Use mine.
