…till your well runs dry.”
My mother used to say that a lot, usually about a relationship that just ended. I would say it whenever someone cut me loose without realizing how good to them I’ve really been. Today, I’m saying it after a very frustrating weekend, trying in vain to boot up my trusty laptop.
After seventy-two grueling hours of arguing, begging, and ultimately reckoning with my five year old Lenovo Thinkpad, I realized how much of my life is governed by this 15 inch laptop. All the tech in the household–even Jenise’s!–jumps off this laptop. And if it goes down, everything that I do that’s connected to the outside world goes down with it.
Phooey.
I’ve been trying to put it off as long as I can, because money is tight, but I need a new laptop. Why does that feel like a betrayal? Because I’m a mid-level tech-rat, and my strongest relationships are with things. My Thinkpad is a she, not an it. Even now, as I bang this post out on my equally unreliable tablet (have to keep it plugged in and prayed over), she’s looking at me as if she wants to prove that she can still come through for me, if I give her just one more chance.
She cannot. I cannot. Which means that I have to dip into my very meager savings for a big chunk of change to bring in “somebody” new.
