It started with a trip to CompUSA to buy a monitor, a fancy, big, groovy monitor to hook up to my laptop. The day before I’d been to Best Buy and bought one there, but it didn’t have speakers and was too small, because I’ve got to have a widescreen to match the screen on my laptop. We (my tech guy, Jeff really did it all) set it up and plugged it in and it looked too plain, didn’t have any pizzazz, so we (Jeff, really) packed it all up and slipped it back in its box, re-hooked up the old one and there we left it until the morning when I got back in my car and returned it to Best Buy. From there I hopped on the freeway to Redondo Beach, because, as luck would have it, the Culver City Comp USA didn’t have the monitor I wanted, the one Jeff and I spent a good half-hour scouring the internet for, the one that had speakers and a 22 inch screen. It was ten in the morning so the traffic was good and I zipped along the 405 for the twelve miles, aware that on my left, the 405 south was crawling along, (due to a tanker overturning farther up the freeway, I heard on the radio).

After backtracking a couple of times on Hawthorne Blvd I pulled into the parking lot. The salesman at CompUSA snapped me up as I walked in the door and promptly checked his stock on the VX2235wm and confirmed they had six of them. He commandeered a rolling ladder that took him up to the tallest shelf in the place and pulled down my new monitor, asking me before it even hit the bottom of the shopping cart whether I wanted to purchase the Extended Warranty that CompUSA offered. Insurance, he said and explained how much of a hassle it would be if something went wrong with it and I had to return it to the manufacturer; packing it and shipping it to their service center, while with CompUSA, well, with them, I could just bring it in and they’d replace it, no questions asked, for the same model, or a newer model of comparable value—for two years, he said. After sharing with him my philosophy on insurance; that it was gambling, that it was all about the risk factor, I declined the offer. He heartily agreed with me that insurance was a racket, but wanted to point out it was only $49.99 for the protection plan, and that was for two years and he highly recommended it.

I took my monitor home in the trunk of the car, slid it into my office, didn’t open the box until after lunch, marveling at how sleek and Star Wars it looked, how it had such a presence sitting there on my desk, even if it wasn’t plugged in yet and no image was flitting across it’s pearly surface. I’ve been upgrading computers since the ‘80’s and every time a new piece of hardware lands on my desk, whether it is a mouse, a keyboard or a back-up drive, there’s a thrill that is akin to (I imagine) how the pioneers felt when they put a new wheel on the wagon or blade on the plow. My feeling is if you have to work with machines they should not only perform at a high level, but give you pleasure when you lay your eyes and hands on them. This monitor was all of that—promising many happy hours marveling at its attributes.

By now you must realize that not every fairy tale has a happy ending. And that, of course, goes for computer tales as well. What was to be a "simple install" was fraught with perplexing, mysterious and downright contentious “issues” between the laptop and the monitor. Although the laptop (a Japanese model) said it would support the monitor and could project the high resolution necessary to view images in a normal perspective—well, they were speaking different languages. Calls to ViewSonic (by Jeff, of course) didn’t help. Calls to Toshiba were close to worthless. Installing this driver and that driver, upgrading the BIOS (I have no idea what that means) had no effect at all. When set to the desired resolution the icons on the Desktop ran off the sides of the screen, simply disappearing into the ethers. We’ve (mostly Jeff, again) have tried everything, including considering a faith “computer” healer to simply realign the aura of this obviously recalcitrant laptop. Nothing we have done has brought a whit of change to the dysfunctional relationship these two pieces of equipment have with each other.

By the end of all this I was one fried and wigged out gal; eyes crossed and brain numbed to the point of zombie-ism. I had counted on this technology to ease my stress, to allow me more creative freedom and now, NOW, it seemed an insolvable “issue.” I went to bed early and hoped (as sometimes does happen) that the answer would come in a dream (to Jeff, of course, who would be able to understand it) and that in the morning, the sun would be shining, the birds singing and my laptop and monitor would have made up and decided to shed their differences and embrace—to co-operate and align themselves for my sake and for the sake of their kind. I believed it was possible. Miracles do happen. Yes, but when I woke up in the morning the sun was hidden by clouds and soon it began to rain. It hasn’t stopped all day. Jeff has gone skiing for a week and, as you can see, I’m typing away, looking right into the heart of my new monitor, finding that in spite of resolution “issues,” the words still find their way to the page. And, even though I didn’t get that protection plan I can return the monitor for a full refund within 21 days of purchase. I’m at 20 and counting.

Here’s a fun poem that somewhat expresses the frustration (nay, exasperation) I was feeling yesterday:

POEM

"It’s only me knocking on the door
of your heart" whined the radio
while I bawled feverishly, eating
an orange, salting it up a little.

A gelatin light squeezed windows
I had watched all night at, bored,
lordy was I bored. I thought maybe
some bombers would fly over or

something. No, I was really nuts,
miserable. I called Jan and John
and Al and Waldemar and Grace and then
got scared, hung up, screamed!

and couldn’t get out a window
because I’d locked them all, because
I’m six flights up. And it’s been a
terribly cold winter, radio’s been broke.

Frank O’Hara
Poems Retrieved
Grey Fox Press