The Day The Laptop Died (with apologies to Don McLean)

So bye, bye my Toshiba laptop,

Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry…

Only in this case, it was a beat-up Mazda and it wasn’t a levee but a series of electrical stores. The result was still the same. I came up dry and without a replacement * sad face *

You could argue that my laptop isn’t actually dead, it’s only the screen that has finally given up, and I can still use it when I connect it to an external monitor… but… kinda defeats the idea of it being a lap-top, huh? It can go anywhere… as long as it has a 15” screen attached on the end of a wire. Yeah right.

I set off yesterday with an optimistic smile, fully expecting to come home with a shiny new laptop in a box, and be surfing and writing again by sunset. So what went wrong? It’s just a laptop, right?

It came down to one word. CHOICE.

Have you looked at them recently? So many decisions. Memory. Hard drive size. Processor. Screen size. One mouse button or two? Or none? Screen resolution. Battery life. Operating system. And then you finally get to Cost, oh and availability. Sod’s Law dictates that when you finally pick one, the damn thing isn’t in stock.

I spent all afternoon comparing options and then came home to investigate the even wider range available on mail order… I felt like crying. My supermarket stocks precisely 6 brands of ground coffee. Deciding which to buy takes, oh, 10 seconds at most. So I tried again today. Looked at so many that my head was at risk of turning into a giant disk drive, it was spinning so fast.

And then I finally made my choice. It met my specifications, was only slightly more expensive than I’d planned to spend… and the only one left was the display model. Okay, I told myself, it’s still good. But since the shop was about to close, and the sales assistant assured me he HAD to reformat the hard drive in order to sell it in a ‘clean’ state, I couldn’t take it home with me. With luck, it will be delivered tomorrow and I can finally resume the oh so important piece of work that I need it for.

My fingers are crossed, my toes would be if I could cross them (although that sounds painful, so maybe not!), and I will spend tomorrow in an agony of anticipation, waiting for The Call from my hubby.

So what is this Important Piece of Work that is hanging in limbo? It’s my latest manuscript. My crit-partner (http://www.lilliangrant.com/) and I have challenged ourselves to write a Shifter Short Story each. She’s half finished while I’ve barely scratched the surface! Mine has a Christmas theme and I plan to publish it as another freebie here on my website, so I have a few weeks yet. I’ll let you know when it’s done 🙂

(pics courtesy of 123rf.com)