The Laptop Redemption Disk…

I bought my first laptop when I was in law school.  This was back in 1999 when only professional had laptops.  We purchased a Toshiba Satellite from Best Buy.  I say we because a new laptop was a big enough purchase that it required a family decision.  However, the laptop did what it was supposed to do.

And more!  It opened up a Pandora’s Box.  IMing. Freeware. I think a computer is probably the only place that one can indulge in each of the seven deadly sins and break each of the Ten Commandments sitting in one place.  For those new to computers, such evils are easily seductive because one can participate in them behind the safety of computer screen.  Further, such seduction can occur before one knows one is participating in it.

I  remember a time when I downloaded some program I though was a system tool I did not necessarily need but I thought would be “cool”.  When it finished downloading, I pressed the open button.  Suddenly, green bugs filled the screen and a kind of matrix dissolve ate away into blackness.  Blood rushed out of my body leaving only cold fear that gripped my heart.  I was relieved when the computer screen sparked to life and an advertisement for a computer game filled the screen.  I was able to close the program; no damage had been done.  That I learned a lesson that day.

Sort of.  In an effort to catch on to all the new trends, I downloaded all the programs that were discussed on the web.  I would try them one-by-one, at least for a minute or two, but, then, I would not return to the program again, allowing its shortcut icon to sit upon my desktop for months until I finally decided to uninstall the program.  Usually, this happened when the pie chart showing the amount of memory left on the hard drive showed only a sliver of available space.

At one point the Toshiba Satellite had suffered being jostled to and from law school and from having programs burned onto and off of its hard drive that the laptop begin to become slow and ungainly.  I grew frustrated with the start up time, and, when you are fashionably late to law school, a slow start up time was always a problem.  Not to mention the fan was pretty loud.  (I got more than one dirty look from classmates who I sat behind in class.)

I was aware that there was a disk that came with the laptop.  It was ominously sealed with huge warning sticker on its cover.  With the computer wheezing and loaded with crapware and likely viruses of all sorts, I thought I had nothing to lose by opening it up and putting in the disk.  While it didn’t cure the Satellite’s asthma, it did seem to wash away all the crap I had placed on its hard drive.  It was a complete redemption for the computer. 

You would have thought that with a new leash on life, forgiveness from the computer gods, I would not re-load the hard drive with more crapware or viruses.  However, old habits are hard to break, and, soon, the laptop was filled with programs I did not need and hidden viruses.  Of course, I thought this was no problem because like a Catholic priest, I needed only to wash away these sins by putting in the recovery disk.

But the hard living wore hard on my Satellite.  Its wheeze got louder.  The time to start-up was slower and slower.  The need to do a hard restart, i.e., pushing the power button down until the computer turned off occurred more often. 

Finally, the time came when the laptop no longer was reliable enough for  me to perform the work I needed.  I was in the final week of working at the middle school were I was teaching.  My wife and I were in the midst of preparing to move to another city where I was going to begin my legal career, and I needed to enter some grades for the person taking my place after I left.  It was then that the laptop gave its last wheeze and just gave in.  No amount of recovery would help, it had reached its end and needed to be retired.

I purchased a brand new Toshiba Satellite, relegating the old one to the box it came in.  As I put the packaging material around the laptop and slipped it into the box, I had the feeling that I was laying it into its casket, which I would then bury it into a closet or even worse at a local recycling center.  I can only hope that it will find rest at last, that it will not be required to wheeze to life any more.