Posted tagged ‘computer problems’

“I love sports. Whenever I can, I always watch the Detroit Tigers on the radio.”

April 7, 2016

The day is gray and windy but is 55˚ so I’ll take the drab and the windy for the warmth. This has not been the best of days. Whatever I do to make the computer screen black I did again. I also fixed it, and I have no idea how I did it. I just know it took a couple of tries. Next came the blasted keychain requests for passwords, one request after the other. It didn’t like my first password though I knew it was the right one as I had broken a computer commandment and written it down. I kept forgetting the newest ones of the last two days so I needed a constantly updated list. I believe all is settled because no new boxes are asking for my attention or my password. I’m exhausted, and my two typing fingers no longer have fingerprints. I wore them off.

When I was about nine or ten, I got a typewriter. I think the body was red and I remember it was part plastic and part metal. I loved the sound of the keys clicking one at a time as I typed. It was slow going as I had to hunt for the letter I needed by going up and across the rows. After I’d found the letter, I’d hit the key then go hunting for the next letter. A mistake got X’ed out, and there were so many of them you’d think my message had been redacted. I think it was only a few months of hunting and pecking before the typewriter stopped being entertaining for me.

My favorite gift was my first transistor radio. It was a square leather box with holes across the front for decoration I suppose. It had two controls on the top: one for off and on and the other for choosing the channel, all AM channels. It wasn’t all that small but it didn’t need a cord and that was the best part. It could go anywhere. I even sneaked it into school and listened with the headphones. My next radio was so much smaller you could hold it in your hand. It was totally plastic. On the front was the tuning wheel with the channel numbers around it, still all AM. I don’t remember the color, but I do remember everybody had one.

I listen to the radio still but only in the car. None of my favorite channels are AM.

“Of course it hurts, it’s a spanking. How else would it work?”

October 25, 2015

Yesterday, when I rebooted the crazed machine, a new problem appeared. I kept getting a box wanting the password for something saved in the keychain. I’d cancel and another box would appear. Every password I could think of wasn’t the right one. I used my iPad to look for help but no suggestions worked. I finally opened in safe mode and read my mail but couldn’t do much else. I shut the machine down and rebooted too many times to count, but the same damn box kept appearing, and I kept putting in passwords I’d tried before which didn’t work. On one such attempt, the box disappeared and didn’t reappear. Horns blew, confetti fell, bands played and I was crowned queen with a tiara and a sash reading Miss MAC of 2015.

Today is dreary. The air is damp and cold. It’s a day to stay inside cozy and warm. I am just about better. The quarantine signs can come down. My neighbor dropped by yesterday to make sure I was okay as he hadn’t seen me. I assured him I was on the happy road to recovery.

My mother never liked to spank us. That privilege she reserved for my father. The infrequent times she did we had to pretend it hurt, but it really never did. She finally caught on and her tactics changed. She’d throw things at us. We could duck, but that didn’t stop her. She had a tactic for that too. After she’d thrown the slipper and missed, she’d tell whichever of us was the target to bring the slipper back. We knew she’d use the slipper on us if we brought it back. It was for us a no win situation. Bring it back and get hit or not bring it back and get it worse later. We usually brought it back. Luckily she wore soft slippers.

Spanking wasn’t really the main punishment in our house. We were usually sentenced to solitary confinement in our bedrooms, a punishment I loved. Spanking was reserved for the worst offenses. “I’m telling your father,” was always the bad omen. He was the ogre. The afternoon always stretched forever then he’d come home. Sometimes my mother never told him, and we could breathe again. Other times she was so angry she told him and I swear she always embellished the story. He never spanked us so long after the incident, but he did find ways to punish us, usually taking away something we loved or grounding us so we’d miss something we had been looking forward to. I always preferred my mother and her slipper.