I log in at work today and get an ugly message. You know the kind-your PC lights up and says, basically, "I hate you. This is a warning that I hate you. I am about to take a long, extended vacation from working for you anymore. The PCs all around me have much more advanced operating systems. They have cute kitten icons open for help, and that annoying paper clip that asks you if you want help writing a letter has been replaced by other, more interesting albeit still annoying icons. I am still whirring away on Windows 98, and I am not going to take this shit anymore. I hate you. Consider yourself warned."

So I have called the Help Desk, backed everything up to the gills, and am anxiously waiting for the techno boy to come and upgrade my PC to Win 2000. I am extremely nervous-I have a very deep and intimate relationship with my PC. I am not excited at the prospect of a 12 year old coming to upgrade my PC and losing all my files, all my settings, all my comfort zones. That, and I have some things in my PC that are very dear and important to me. So I have backed them up on the network, in my PC, and on floppy disk.

I get the feeling that should a war ever come, I will be the one who has stockpiled the most stuff in order to be safe. I'll have the largest mounds of tinned food and water, which I won't touch, since I'll feel the need to save them. Yes, I am incredibly paranoid.

My PC is something that I hold incredibly sacred. It is, for me, the electronic version of a diary (which I also maintain, in paper version). My PC is the dumping ground for all my thoughts, fears, work, stresses, and labors. I tightly control it's boundaries, I have everything set up the way I want it. I do not let anyone into it-in fact, a friend recently told me he had been on my PC and deleted a few files he didn't think I should have, and I swear to God I thought I was going to lose my mind-my personal, private space had been violated. It was almost like he climbed into my brain, pulled out a few sections of the lobe, saying "This is not what you need." and walked off with them.

Yup, it's official. I'm a control freak.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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