3 of 15

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

crash.

Idle mouse clicking and thoughtless finger dragging during a pause to collect my thoughts brought about the disappearance of all I had written as well as that upper tool bar with all those tools and icons I don't know how to employ but whose appearance has become familiar and comforting. A few random, nervous key or mouse strokes and suddenly they reappear. This does not always happen. I have lost whole letters and book chapters, which sometimes turn up embedded in the middle of some long-forgotten file, or else they are circling Saturn along with all my stray socks and lost luggage. But this time the screen returns to the semi-comprehensible amalgam I am accustomed to seeing. Down on the lower right, apart from the white paper simulacrum on which I am typing this-a frame set in a background that looks like a summer sky with some contrails-there is a little square box with a tiny computer on two legs and little mouse feet. As I type along, the little creature bows, turns, bobs, shows me its backside. Tapping in these words, the figure is rocking back and forth with seeming impatience. I have no idea what I am to infer from this activity. Let's try clicking on the little circle next to it. Hmmm! A waving hand appears in his screen face bidding farewell and the mini-box disappears.

No way can a normal individual understand and work a computer if that individual was born in the days when an evening's family entertainment was watching the radio. I have an advanced academic degree, am widely read. Every Sunday I lay to rest the New York Times crossword and acrostic before lunchtime. I discourse extemporaneously on Shelley's adaptation of terza rima to stanzaic form. I win at Scrabble. Though I can change a light bulb, I am hesitant to unplug an electrical outlet for fear the electricity will run out on the floor. I grudgingly accept my computer as a sophisticated great grandchild of my Smith-Corona portable separated from me by an unbridgeable generation gap. However, I draw the line at being insulted.

During a break in composing this meandering confession, I decided to type a quick letter to a friend. I got as far as Dear Ralph when that tap dancing two-footed computer flashed on along with a message that said, "It looks like you are writing a letter. Would you like help?" Arrrgh! This cheeky machine would question my epistolary capabilities! Where's all the help when I'm trying to free a frozen cursor, fashion a template, create a spreadsheet, or simply address and print an envelope?

Today I resisted the urge to hurl my computer through the window. My blood pressure has subsided to an acceptable reading. But stay tuned for my own version of computer crash or sonic boom.

Learn more about this author, Kerry Michael Wood.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about Satire: Computers?
We want to hear your view. Write now!