The Computer Story

This entire situation started last spring. Initially it was Norton. Now before you write & tell I was an idiot for letting it go- you're right. I was wrong to let it go at all.

BUT at the time I hunted through the pages & pages of Tech support both at Norton and at Dell. Pretty much it was a catch 22- Norton wanted info off the purchase receipt and I didn't have it (the computer was a gift from my in laws). Then, Dell told me they wouldn't help me because my husband was listed as contact person (or something similar)& I need to call Norton anyway. I asked Husband to call Dell support to fix Norton, but it never happened. I'm willing to nag about certain things, but isn't one of them. So I let it go.

Fast forward to this summer. The kids and I started having trouble playing certain online games. Occasionally I had trouble with certain functions. Again, enough to be irritating, but not enough to get me to nag the spouse (based on information I'd gotten directly from Dell). Hubby never uses the computer here unless he's playing Pogo or whatever, so what did he care?!

Monday daughter reminded me (again) that the Apple update for her iPod won't load. Since it was 6 am I nodded at her and said, "Yeah. I'll figure it out later." Daughter took her giant turtleshell, otherwise known as her backpack) and trudged across the street to catch the bus. Hours later, attempting to evade laundry and housework, I tried to play my favorite game. No go. It won't load. Same error message Daughter's gotten.

That was it. The straw that finally lit a fire under my lazy behind. I called Dell. We had a little conversation about whether or not I could do this or Hubby. The tech didn't have any problems & told me whoever answered my call way back when should've helped me. UH. Great. Thanks. I've spent the last 6 months or whatever with computer problems because your company didn't train him properly. I said as much to him and he told me he'd file a form that reprimanded the tech. Whatever. Like that'll help me now, PAL.

Finally, after an hour and twenty minutes (I wrote down the time the guy picked up my call) of talking to guy #1 plus his supervisor, we decided the operating system had become compromised. They hinted they really wanted me to hang up and make back up discs and call them back so they could reload me and I'd have a new computer. Or I could wipe it all now and they'd reload all of our basic stuff (the programs my inlaws had paid for etc.) like it was new.

What do they think I'm stupid?! You want me to hang up and call again because of your convenience? That won't happen. I don't store pictures or letters or other similar items on the computer. No financial or business matters. Yeah, I'm old fashioned. I do our accounts on paper & I hate spreadsheets. Besides, I don't trust firewalls enough to keep our pathetic financial info private. Pretty much it was all stuff related to games & favorite sites and stuff related to surfing & gaming.

So they wiped the hard drive and reloaded it all & we're good to go. Except that it took me nearly two hours of precious surfing time. I was stuck interpreting computer tech-ese, I missed my lunch time and, worst of all, I was totally stuck with folding a couch full of clean linens.

OTOH, I'm still here. Relatively normal. Supposedly with a normal fully functional, non invaded computer. HAHAHAHA As if I believe that.