As one friend says, when the world gets weird, “Sagittarius must be in retrograde.”
It was my very own “Rise of the Machines.” In one day, half of my 21st-century gadgets turned on me at the same time. I am waiting for life’s ref to give me 15 yards for piling on.
First it was my computer at school. It started when I foolishly assured the IT guy that everything was working great.
Within minutes of his departure, all gang agley. Suddenly the creature began freezing up mid-checkout and the book scanner took a strong dislike to the numbers on the bar codes and began making up its own. This happened, of course, while I had a line of anxious young readers with books in hand.
That same morning, my just three-week-old iPhone announced “No Service.” I was wearing shirt and shoes, but despite my best efforts, it would not let me in, or any messages out. This, of course, required an hour on the phone with technical support, which sent me off to the store for a new SIM card and two hours of further kerfuffle.
The phone refused to be resuscitated and all the king’s horses and men could not fix it.
I am now being sent a second-hand phone for which I must continue to pay the price of a new one. Good times. On the bright side, the shiny, new phone rolled over and died pretty swiftly, so perhaps a refurbished one will have worked out those bugs. I’m keeping a good thought.
On the plus side, in the midst of my electronics nightmare, I figured out how to back up to the cloud.
You laugh, but when it actually worked the first time, I saw it as another little piece of magic.
Jean Gillette is a freelance writer considering an investment in two cans and some string or perhaps a rock and chisel. Contact her at [email protected].
