With this buzz about the new i-phone I was seriously thinking about getting over my fear of technology and finally joining the year 2008. Almost as soon as I had this thought my 2003 Mac i-book G3 is sick.
I went to Tekserve in NYC to get a prognosis for my i-book G3. I know all you computer nerds out there are like, "What does she expect? Mac doesn't even make that model anymore." Ok, so I'm a bit of a luddite.
This is my first computer and the one on which I started to write, so I'm emotionally attached.
It has been slowing down consistently for about a year and developed Alzheimer's a few days ago. It doesn't recognize me or that it already has an airport card. It also refuses to acknowledge its software or passwords.
I stroke it's keys the way it used to like, I write funny things on it's keyboard, I even wipe the screen gently with a cloth and i-clear. No response. I have to take it to the Mac hospital known in New York, as Tekserve.
My tech dude is a very large Samoan looking guy with inked sleeves, ear gauges and an amazing smile. His name is Angel. A sign? I tell him I hope he lives up to the name his Mama gave him. After telling him what's wrong he disappears into the bowels of Tekserve with baby Mac.
Angel told the nice security guard to get me a cold Coke in a glass bottle while I was waiting. They have them there for the customers but the dispensing machine is broken, of course.
It was practically 100 degrees outside. A heat wave was enveloping Manhattan and making everyone cranky and their hair frizz. As I sipped my brown carbonated sugar water all I could think about was that I'd have to use that $1000 my Grandmother gave my Father to keep for my wedding. By the way, I'm not even dating anyone so any nuptials are simply a figment of the imagination, or a ghost of "wedding future", as it were. Still, I don't want to use it because somewhere in me I feel this is admitting some sort of defeat.
Angel emerges and looks like a friend who lost all your money at OTB. He told me baby Mac is dying. The only chance it has is if I '"sweep it" and reinstall the software. "Dude," I say," I don't have the original disc. I've moved coasts like, 15 times since 2003. I'm still trying to find my tax returns from 2005."
"That's all you can do, girl," he says with his low soothing stoner voice. He looks at my sickly little laptop and asks me who's the picture of the dude on my wallpaper.
I study meditation with a Swami in India and on my laptop I have a picture of his Guru, Shirdi Sai Baba. He's an ancient Indian Saint who's a healer and has performed many miracles. Baba (as he's affectionately referred to) also loves to make people 'sweat' in order to get them to their truth. I say to Angel, "Oh he's laughing his ass off at me right now. I've had a crappy few days, and he's making me think about what's really important and what's an illusion."
I am trying to get my act together after moving back to New York ...again. You know those dreams you have when you are trying really hard to get somewhere but your feet have cement blocks on them? That's how I've been feeling lately. It's exhausting. Sometimes, you just need a break.
"Maybe he'll take care of you? " Angel says with a derisive smile, pointing to Baba.
Just then two blond pony tailed girls in their early twenties come in and sidle up to the computer bar next to me. They are carrying a G5 desktop and put it down as they wipe the sweat away from under their Chanel sunglasses.
"Ummm... do you guys take donations?" They ask with the kind of voice possessed only by young women with their first grown-up New York job. They are carrying bags that cost more than my rent.
Angel looks at them like they're from planet Zork. I quickly raise my hand like I'm in 7th grade Math class and I finally know the answer.
"I do! I do!" I practically scream at them. "I desperately need a computer." Now they look at me like I'm the one from outer space.
"I'm an actress and a writer," I tell them, like they care.
Maybe they'd recognize me If I tell them about the movies I've done? Then I realize they were probably eight years old when The Brothers McMullen came out.
What is going on with my life?
"Ummm, our boss said we have to donate it to like, a charity?"
"I am a charity!" I insist. "Is that computer better than the one I have?" I stage whisper to Angel. His big eyes look at me and say, 'are you kidding me?'
The bigger blond pony tail girl looks at the smaller one and says, "I guess we can give it to her. I mean, it doesn't make a difference if we do that or find someone else."
I look at Angel like he has a hotline to heaven and is in control of my fate. He tells the blond ponytails, "Dude, I have no idea what's going to happen to this machine when it leaves my hands."
"Should we give it to her?" big blond ponytail girl asks the little one who cocks her head to the side with an apathetic gesture of "Why not?"
I jump up and down like I just a reality show and smile so hard my cheeks hurt. I break out into a happy dance on the floor of Tekserve.
Angel makes sure the G5 works and then charges me $65.99 to transfer all my data from dying baby Mac. He then helps me into a cab and says, "Girl, it's your lucky day."
And so it was. Thanks to a couple of white chicks, an Indian Saint, and an Angel.
P.S. Right before Angel transferred the data from the laptop to my new G5, he looked at it quizzically. He then informs me my laptop was now working perfectly and he had no idea how that would be possible.
I told him some things are simply mini miracles.