Two weeks ago, I took my computer and sat down in the comfort of my living room to write my last two articles for the paper.
I always sit in the living room and write; I find it very relaxing and this way I can be with my family.
I opened my computer to a message that said, “There was an error, please restart your computer.”
I restarted my computer, which seemed to take a great deal of time, but eventually it started up and jumped to my home page. Here we go, I thought. I went to the page that I needed and proceeded to print it off.
I walked over to the printer, and it quit halfway through the page. Back to the computer I went, but my screen was black. My daughter told me the computer made a weird sound, so I restarted the machine again.
This time it turned on and went straight to the page I was working on, but my cursor was nowhere to be found. I went online to see what I did wrong and to find the way to relocate the arrow. After following the instructions, my whole screen started to jiggle and parts of the screen have disappeared.
My whole computer is frozen, so I turn it off and reboot it. By this time I am beginning to get frustrated as I do not have the patience for this.
My daughter, who knows me all too well, asked if this might be a sewing machine episode. She had to bring up the sewing machine, which I remember like yesterday, but it happened over 25 years ago.
I have sewn many things such as wedding dresses, gowns, baby clothes and suits. I had an older sewing machine and I was working on a suit jacket for a client.
My machine was acting up, so I brought it in for repair and a week later it was ready to take home.
I got a scrap piece of material and the machine seemed to work well, so I got the suit jacket and started doing the top stitching, only to have the machine do the same thing it did last time, but worse.
I tried several times, and it just got worse. I was choked and very frustrated.
I am not a violent person, but I took the machine outside and dropped it on the cement pad. I walked to the shop and got the "general persuader", which is our 10-pound sledgehammer and fixed the machine.
When my husband came home, he asked why the general was standing at the back door, and I simply said in a calm voice, “I fixed my sewing machine".
It is one way to get a new sewing machine, although I do not recommend it.
My daughter thought the same fate might await my computer and I was tempted to do so, but kept myself under control. Instead, I took it in to be repaired, as I have too many things on this computer to be messing with it.
The computer was not repairable. Do not ask me for the details as I could not tell you what happened.
The young man, Nathan at House of Stationery, was amazing. He set up my new computer, showed me everything I needed to know and told me I could call anytime.
So, once again here I sit in my living room with my family, on my new computer, writing my first article on it.
It has a few new bells and whistles, but nothing fancy. If it does what I need it to do, it should be safe from the general persuader.
