Dear Ferret Folks-

I have been off the net for a while. Well, it was more like I was...
um... booted from the net. Our computer was admittedly a senior
citizen. The man building our super brand new, soon to arrive computer
(I'm using our spare, today) says that he is absolutely amazed that
it ran as well as it did. (For you computer nerds out there it had a
Pentium 3.3 and it was running Windows XP at a pretty darn good speed!)
Even our spare is a senior citizen. It is ten years old, and it took
days to talk it into connecting.

I emphasize the word *ran*. It ran. Formerly. Until about two weeks ago
when a particularly malicious bit of programming waltzed right past our
Nortons and slowed things to a crawl. The poor thing hummed and clicked
and couldn't do anything right. We did every sneaky thing we could
think of to get rid of the alien invader, yet it remained, sucking at
our computer like a cyber-lamprey day after day while we tried to evict
it.

My husband Dann is a good natured, optimistic man with a generally
sunny disposition. He has a dog's heart, and I say that as a
compliment. Unless the computer screws up. Then it's like he develops
temporary brain damage. He yells at the computer. He slams things
around. He threatens the computer with dire harm. He stomps around the
house complaining, throwing his arms wide, gesticulating wildly. He's
gonna kick the snots outta that thing, it's a piece of junk. Microsoft
is in on it. Bill Gates needs to die. I hear this rant several times a
year. I suspect that computer problems make him so crazy because he has
a real gift for fixing things, he makes his living that way. Anything
with a greasy iron heart and moving parts like an internal combustion
engine seemingly repairs itself beneath his hands. But computers? No
soul, just silicon. Mind you, he's not a half bad programmer. But
computers...are different. There is something really personal about
the computer going down. It tasks him.

There finally come a moment after about a week of this when he did the
unthinkable. He stopped talking about kicking the snots out of the
computer, an understandable twenty-first century fantasy and moved
on to *actually* kicking it. Driven half mad by the elusive malware
program, he gave a warriors bellow (He is Scotts. It might have been
an ancestral clan battle cry.) and punted it into the next world with
one of his size ten steel-toed work boots.

BLAMMO!!!!

Imagine flying shards of bone-colored plastic, silver and green circuit
boards in flight. The "on" light dimmed, darkened to a cinder, and
there was a winding down "hmmmmmmnnnnnn" sound. The computer lay on
its side, more or less in one wide rectangular piece. More or less.
The monitor went black. It got very quiet in the house. Ping and Puma,
their cage a scant three feet from what *used* to be the computer were
sitting up in their favourite John Deere green and yellow tractor
hammie watching all of this with eyes the size of hen's eggs. Their
blunt little ears were hitched back in a frozen expression of "Huh?"
They were still, very still. They had been sound asleep only moments
before. Puma finally leaned over to Ping and gave him a brief little
nuzzle, as if to say "It's OK, the hoomins just lost their minds again.
It will pass." And Ping relaxed, sighing deeply.

I looked at Ping and Puma. They looked at me. We all looked over at
Dann and what was left of the computer. After a long pause I said "You
killed it." Dann, shaking his lethal weapon (the police include "shod
foot" in their category of lethal weapons in criminal assaults) said
tightly "It'll be fine." That's when I knew without question that the
computer would never, ever run again. When he gives me "It'll be fine"
in that particular tone of voice I know it's over. History.

Now, I must point out here in Dann's defense that he never bashes
*people* like this, just the occasional inanimate object. He is
actually a very gentle man, unless the computer goes down at which
point he morphs into the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny / Road Runner.
Please don't imagine that I live a life of fear, waiting for the next
explosion. I don't. But I also wasn't going to stick around and watch
him try futilly to coax life from what was left of the computer. I went
into the kitchen and consoled myself with some emergency chocolate. It
was Ping and Puma who watched him come to the painful conclusion that
he had really done it this time. He had kicked the snots out of the
computer. I'd love to hear their version of the story.

After about ten minutes Dann, his long blond hippy poinytail limp with
defeat, came into the kitchen and admitted that the computer was dead,
and that he was an ***hole. I did not argue either point. He said
mournfully "Now I know where the tax refund is going. We're going to
get a new computer." And, he needed a new pair of steel-toed work
boots. The one he kicked the computer with? The boot tore away from
the sole upon impact. The steel toe bent.

And? The best part. I swear this is true. When Dann tried to restart
the computer he got an error message. It read "Unrecoverable Boot
Error." We had a good howling laugh over that one! Fortunately we are
not just spouses, we are friends, so we can see the humor in these
things and I didn't have to divorce or kill him.

*This* time!

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5952]