What I hate about my computer!

Well, for starters, when it freezes. I call tech support in Shanghai, 17 hours away by air, and someone named "Mary" with a Chinese accent tries to help. She wants me to unplug everything. I explain that I've already done that and it won't correct my problem. She brings up my screen from her end (no jokes about that comment, please) and fiddles with her controls locked into mine. I still remain frozen.

Mary finally gives up after an hour and says I probably need a new modem. Mine is blinking badly. I mention it's already new, only a few months old. She replies that they die quickly. I now wonder how I can find a new modem at 3 am. I can't. Frustrated and angry I slap my modem. All the lights flash at me and settle down. My computer unfreezes!  I shut down and go to bed.

I don't like all the pop-up and drop-down ads. They are so annoying. Then when I delete an ad, a reminder asks me if I really want to leave the page. Does the robot inside my iMac think I am an idiot? Obviously so. I click on the "yes" icon to leave the page. Not yet, says the robot in another comment that locks their page from leaving me. "Are you sure?" is the message. I want to break the screen or smear it with mustard and ketchup. But that's not nice. I need to work with a clean slate, so I go along with their tirade of comments to make a sale.

Another complaint I have is proving that I am not a robot. In order for my comment, or whatever, is to be accepted, I have to file the correct code at the bottom of the last page. It's a scrambled series of numbers and letters all jumbled over one another, some lower case, some upper case and all connected by a common spine that says, "Ha ha ha, dumbo, you better be a graduate in computer science to solve this puzzle. Otherwise, you ain't going nowhere from this moment on."

I have spent as much as an hour and clicked on as many as 27 different codes, as I failed to get any correct ones, and the robot conveniently provides another more complex one to drive me crazy. They win. I lose. I've become crazy and once again, want to find the robot and rip him apart.

There are lots of other complaints I could bring up about the computer, but I'll end here. I do realize that no-cost emails have been driving the US Post Office down the toilet, while saving people millions of dollars in free mailing on the machine. I like that because I average replying to several hundred emails a week. I also send about a dozen snail mail letters out to friends who still like to open paper letters.

Finally, word processing is so much better handled via computer than on an electric typewriter; corrections can be made in seconds and the font looks like it is right off a printing press, which it is. So no more complaints for now. And if your computer freezes, try a little corporal punishment on your modem. It worked for me.