I Want to
Hurt My Computer
I want to hurt my computer. I want to buy a software program
that, when run, causes my computer to suffer grievously, though
not permanently. When my screen freezes or turns blue, I want
a special button I can push to make the CPU start squealing
like a motherboard.
I want a device that stores an electrical charge in my telephone.
For every minute I spend on hold waiting for technical support
to answer, the charge would increase in intensity. When the
guy from tech support finally answers, the electrical bolt of
energy would be discharged into him.
This should not affect my ability to hear what's going on at
the other end of the line, of course. And a special function
would allow the volts to double every time a tape-recorded message
urges me to continue holding. "Your call is important to us,"
the featureless voice always claims. I want my phone to be outfitted
with a translation program which will reconstitute this irritating
reminder into the truth: "Actually, we already have your money,
so we couldn't care less about you. Our technical support department
consists of two college kids, both of whom are busy playing
Doom. Eventually, one of them will come on the line, but it
will be the one who doesn't speak English."
I want my modem to sense when my PC has committed an "illegal
function" and issue a warrant to arrest Bill Gates. When my
system crashes and I lose a file that has taken me more than
an hour to create, I want someone from the computer company
to come out and retype it for me.
I don't understand why new, "upgraded" software creates files
that cannot be read by old, reliable software with the same
name. Is there no one in the computer industry who has noticed
that word processor files all look alike once they are open?
Why can't 6.0 recognize a 7.0 file? It's all just words, isn't
it? There should be a rule that when software engineers buy
a new car, their old cars should cease to function. If they
don't understand why this is happening, they should call me
and I will explain it to them.
How come when my computer catches a virus, I'm the one who
misses work?
I want to know why my printer always jams on the last piece
of paper or the last sheet of checks. When this happens, it
makes me want to put sandpaper into the manual feed and print
the Emancipation Proclamation.
I want to know what good is a Web search engine that returns
324,909,188 "matches" to my keyword. That's like saying, "Good
news, we've located the product you're looking for. It's on
Earth."
I want to know why, when I had a tiny hard drive, my operating
system was virtually crash-proof and took up so little space.
My new operating system is five times the size of my original
hard drive. With every "upgrade," it seems to grow 75 percent.
That's as if every time your mother-in-law came to visit she
weighed another 500 pounds.
Now I've found out that my PC no longer "recognizes" my floppy
drive. How could they not recognize each other? They live together!
Please understand: I don't hate my computer. I just want to
hurt it every once in a while.
