The Computer

I love it. I hate it. I use it, but I don’t trust it. That stupid computer. Of course it would never be the stupid computer operator. It’s never my fault. It’s always the machine. Or maybe my husband for whom the machine willingly obeys. In fact he can even teach it new tricks. Which it then uses to confuse and agitate me.

I have a dog that listens better than the computer. At least to me. I ask him to move the sheep and he rounds them up. I tell him to back off and he comes behind me. I tell him to stay and he does. That’s what the computer is to my husband. If my husband tells the dog to do something, the dog just looks to me for permission. That’s what the computer does for me. I just don’t have the authority and the range of commands to get it to cooperate and obey.

Now I can get the computer to do some things. Even my husband can put the dog out to go to the bathroom. I can look up information on the sheep data base. I write my articles on word perfect. I can even cruise the internet for information. That’s if nothing has moved from where it was previously. Or if the password hasn’t changed. At least I don’t change my dog’s name. It’s usually easy to find him too. He’s wherever I am. Well, if I had to look for the computer I would know where to find it. It would be wherever my husband was, since it’s a laptop. He spends almost as much time with it as I do my dog, except my dog sleeps in my bedroom. Used to be at least my husband couldn’t take the computer to bed with him, but even that has changed. 

Why do we aggravate ourselves with this machine? It is supposed to make life easier. I love to write on it. I can go so much faster. One of the best devices is spell check. I only have problems when my spelling of a word is so far-fetched that the computer can’t even make a guess at the word. The sheep data base is still in the making; my husband, I believe likes changing it and pulling up different configurations of ways to group the sheep. He still can’t answer my questions though. And I don’t trust the computer to not lose my precious documents, I still do a print out regularly and keep a hand written back up notebook. 

Email, and now chat on Facebook have been great inventions. I still can’t understand why, though, a person living a non-long distance phone call away insists on sending me emails, messages and texts.  I’d still much rather talk to a person.

While I like spending time playing games and surfing the net, often the frustrations outweigh the pleasures. A fight with the computer can change the flavor of my whole day. I yell at it and it sits there smugly, not doing what I want. My articles are lost, I can’t make changes to a document, I can’t upload a picture, or change it’s size. I can’t get on the internet; I can’t find where something has moved. I think I’ll choose my dog for a companion. The only annoying things he does are chasing the neighbor’s truck and coming into the house with muddy feet. When I yell at him at least I get a reaction, even if he does turn upside down and piddle. Bet my husband can’t get his stupid computer to do that!