My computer was turned off when I sat down to write this morning and the feeling of dread I experience every time the damn thing does something on its own, without my permission, gripped my bowels. I considered having a stiff egg nog for breakfast, before turning it back on, it being the Christmas season and all but ate a bagel instead. My granddaughter has already issued me two CUIs for operating a computer under the influence and has threatened to suspend all my computering privileges for six months the next time she finds me drunk and drooling at my keyboard.
“Let the adventure begin,” I grumbled as I poked the power button. The computer came to life and immediately responded, in big bold caps, almost as if it was back talking me:
“ALL YOUR FILES ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU LEFT THEM!”
Where else would they be? I wondered. At the bottom of the screen in tiny letters: “Don’t turn your PC off.” Okay, I thought, I’ll play along. I waited. And waited some more. Five minutes later another message appeared:
“WE’VE MADE SOME TWEAKS TO MAKE YOU MORE EXCITED ABOUT WINDOWS 10. IT’S NOW EVEN BETTER THAN IT WAS BEFORE.”
Well, thank God! Maybe the damned thing had come to its senses?, I thought. I had hope for the first time since bringing the miserable thing home with me three months earlier. The little warning at the bottom of the screen, about not turning the computer off had changed:
“DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTEMPT TO TURN OFF YOUR PC!” It knew I’d tried.
More waiting. Growing impatient. Tapping my foot. Ignoring my great grandkids’ early morning demands and my dogs whining to go outside. What if I left and the computer demanded something of me? What would it do? I was searching for the “pause” button when it spoke to me again:
“WE’LL BE READY SOON.” I was relieved. At the bottom of the screen, the message had changed yet again: ‘KEEP YOUR FUCKING FINGERS OFF THE CONTROL-ALT-DELETE BUTTONS OR YOU’LL BE SORRY.’ I stopped trying to turn off my computer. The egg nog was calling me.
Five minutes later: “LET’S START!” Start what?
A tutorial is what. It thought it had me trapped until I sat through the whole damn thing. It didn’t. I just kept poking keys until I was allowed to get to Bing (did Google go out of business?) and then to Face Book. And I didn’t feel the least bit guilty. Chelsea, my granddaughter, had added “ignore all tutorials” to the list of rules I was to abide by if I wanted her continued help with my computer. That particular rule, Rule #37, stemmed from an Outlook tutorial demonstrating how to “Sync” stuff. It wasn’t a particularly well-written tutorial; the instructions were a bit ambiguous if you ask me. Somehow, I lost email privileges for three days and did something that made it so I can’t access my AOL account from this computer without messing up my keyboard. I realize that makes no sense whatsoever and that you probably think I just made it up. I didn’t; it’s all covered under Rules #38 and #39.
I’ve written today’s “Drive By” blog because I feel a duty to warn others with Windows 10 about ignoring all those rude little messages it continually spits out: “you have exceeded your maximum something or other” is one I get a lot. That one’s a speed message; it never sticks around long enough for me to see what it is I’ve exceeded. It’s typically followed by: ‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing, you stupid person?” If you continue to ignore Windows, you’ll eventually push it too far. Once the Program has reached its tipping point, you can expect a final message, written in very small, very black letters:
DO THIS ONE MORE TIME—GO AHEAD—WE DARE YOU! YOUR KEYBOARD HAS BEEN PROGRAMED WITH EXPLOSIVES TO ELIMINATE THREATS TO WINDOWS 10 BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO PROCREATE.
At first, I was relieved that my keyboard hadn’t exploded. All Windows 10 had done to me this time was deny me access to all of my documents. It’s excuse: “Api.Client.dll missing, files corrupted.” Chelsea could fix it.
But then I got to thinking about the ‘what ifs?’
‘What if’ Windows 10 knows I’m way past my procreating years?
‘What if’ it knows fixing that “Api.Client.dll” thingy is so far beyond my skill set I’ll need outside help?
‘What if’ it knows my granddaughter will return, and that she’s been procreating up a storm for the last five years?
‘What if’ Windows 10 is lying in wait, plotting and planning, strategizing, determined to take out my entire gene pool, one relative at a time?
Lee Ann bledsoe 