Fear And Loathing In Boston

Last night I had a dream that there was hole in my computer. Literally. A big, fat hole was burned right through the center of it. I remember putting my finger in it to see if it was real and it was.

Then, this morning I woke up and started to do some work and my computer just flipped out and crashed. The screen was dead and every time I tried to reboot it, the screen remained black and these ominous, three beeps would come out of it.

I freaked out. I was certain that I'd lost everything on my computer. Everything. My mind started racing and I couldn't stop thinking, "SHIT, I haven't backed up ANY of my work." Not to mention the thousands of dollars of iTunes music I had on there. Balls.

I'm not ashamed to admit this, but I cried. I cried like a big baby for about three minutes before I got my act together and went to the Apple store.

I see now why it's called The Genius Bar.

When I sat down and opened my filthy, 2004 PowerBook G4 (which looked pathetic compared to all the sweet new ones they have now in that store), I told Nick, a grungy lad with cool spectacles and the most perfect nose I've ever seen on a human being, that my computer was dead. Please help me.

I thought I was going to cry again. I looked like shit, my hair was a greasy mess, and I swear he could smell my desperation. (That's desperation. Not body odor. I HAD put deodorant on before I ran out the door. I think.)

Me: It won't even turn on. The screen just goes black and then whenever I hit the power button, these three beeps come out of the computer.

Nick: Oh, right. Yeah, The Three Beeps. Mmmm, hmmm... I see. One moment.

He takes the computer to the back and I wait.

Waiting in the Apple store is like waiting in a doctor's office. It's white, clean, clinical. Hoards of people clutching their computers/ipods/iPhones look on nervously as they await their appointment. Those patients being dealt with at the Genius Bar are equally as nervous as their doctor tests and pokes their machine, using jargon like "malware" and "proxy server". One guy, whose face I literally couldn't see because it was so covered in hair, said to this 60-something year-old woman, "You're really going to have to invest in Time Machine. It stores all of your old files, no matter how old and it really is a beautiful thing to watch it at work in all of its glory."

So, I waited nervously, while spanning out in my mind how the hell I was going to afford a new $1500 computer at this point in my life - Apple has payment plans, right?

Nick came back a few minutes later, with a face like stone, shoved my newly-cleaned (and my does it sparkle now) laptop in my face and uttered my favorite East Coast phrase: "You're all set."

What?? He fixed it. The perfect-profiled Genius had fixed it. Something to do with the RAM and switching its position inside the computer. An angel had saved me.

En route home, I took this as a warning sign to finally change the oil in my car and get my tires and brakes checked. Eric at Meineke also made me think I was paranoid and crazy and said everything was fine. He even fixed part of my bumper that was falling off at the front after I ran over a median during a snowstorm (literally couldn't see the damn thing).

So, that's my adventurous day off. Shit though - I've become one of those reliant people when it comes to my computer. I literally don't know what I would have done if I had lost everything. Scary.

Then I spoke to my mom and we talked about the earthquakes in Italy and I realized what an asshole I'd been today.

Things could be worse - they could LITERALLY be crashing down around me instead of metaphorically, which is usually how I dramatically describe things when I get stressed.

Seriously. Stop it.