Technical Difficulties

Well, I've had a wee bit of an unexpected surprise this week regarding my lovely Apple laptop. Have I ever mentioned, I lurv my laptop? I LURV it. It is one of my top three possessions (ranked in with my I-Pod and my Dyson vacuum). It is small and lightweight, low-maintenance, it never gets sick, it is incredibly hardy- it is the perfect machine.

And then it stopped working. After performing what seemed to be a routine update, it stopped. It just stopped. It pretended to work when it turned on, making the little opening note sound (which, I swear on all things holy, is the first few chords of "Live and Let Die"), it appeared to power up and then... nothing. A blank screen.

Apple is a little weird, in that when you buy the computer, if you want customer service, you have to pay for it. You buy a warranty and the customer service is included in that. It sounds dodgy, but here's why it's great: you never wait more than a couple of minutes to get a technician, they are easy to understand, and they do not let you off the phone until the problem is solved. I LURV my Apple. (Also, it forces fools like me, though they've experienced valuable items breaking in a far too short period of time, who say "who needs a warranty?" to get one. It is, The Hubba assured me, and damn if he's not right, a small price for a great thing.)

So I whipped out my handy-dandy Apple Care Protection Plan and gave them a ring. Possibly the most mellow technician EVER took my call and after a while of fiddle-faddling around, we discovered a clue. Under "Disk Utilities" it said System Failing.

I pointed out to my cool dude technician, this did not sound promising. About ten agonizing seconds later, he agreed, no, no, it did not. Another fifteen to twenty seconds later, he said, no, it was, in fact, very, very bad.

However- I have Apple Care Protection- which is very cool, he added (I kid you not)- and so am entitled to take that laptop to the nearest Apple store and have them send it back to the mothership, where they will replace my hard drive and (!) any other parts that might need it. Was there, he paused to ask, anything on the hard drive I would want to save?

Once my heart started back up, I assured him, as calmly as I could, yes there was a lot I wanted to get off the hard drive. No problem, no problem, at the store let them know and they'll back it up for me and send me home with a handy-dandy CD of all my work.

I summoned the courage to ask, how long until I get my computer back? Somewhere in the world, a woman was able to give birth in the time it took my cool dude to say "Five... to... ten..." Please don't say weeks, please don't say weeks, I mentally chanted. "... days."

So there's the story told, in about a tenth of the time it took to act it out. I have an appointment to take my laptop in tomorrow, have everything pulled off (we hope, we hope, dear God we hope) and then leave my little darling in the hands of some very laid back fellows, to be returned, like new, to me in... five... to... ten... days.

I expect to post between now and then, but I warn you: The desktop? Where I'm writing now? It's all the way upstairs.

And it's a Dell.

So I'm not making any promises.