Cheryl Ries

AY YI YI . . . that's where this story begins!  I am a proclaimed technophobe.  There is nothing which scares me more than the premise of this box called the computer and all the pratfalls and traps, stumbles and mistakes it enables me to make in the name of progress into the 21st century.  It is my nemesis, my friend, my companion, and my biggest black hole of uncertainty.  It breaks, I go nuts.  It breaks, I go nuts, and it breaks, I go nuts!

Today, after doing without the laptop for about a week, I finally pick up the new and improved, healed version.  It cost me $80.00.  I shouldn't complain, but then upon returning home with said machine, I cannot access it.  The security code has eluded me, it is lost . . . somewhere in my steel trap, and although I made this magical code within the last few years, it might as well be a dead language, it's gone!  Now, this is surely my fault, no mistaking that.  My point is, this beast of a techno gadget, is now holding me hostage for the sake that I cannot remember said code!  I've no entry to the machine I just spent that money to repair.  Besides the anticipation, I've work to do, but now it is waiting longer, as I need some help to access this information.  I cannot get in . . . it's the football, I'm the president, and I forgot the code which changes the course of mankind!  LOL

What was my solution you ask?  Why a handy dandy local bookstore with free wi-fi.  I've come to mooch the internet acess I hoped I could use with their signal, their access codes, and their freedom!  My own walls have locked me out, but their wall fell down conveniently for me, long enough to do some things which are pressing, hoping that my "computer guy" can come on a mercy mission to fix it all for me!  It's so easy when you get it, so difficult when you are standing on the outside of the 21st century, watching some device, much like HAL  . . . the computer in the movie, "2001, A Space Odyssey" taking charge of everything, while you sit, witnessing life at its most frustrating!

And so I reiterate, modern technology, full of pratfalls, I stumble and wish for just a little bit more clarity!  Bring it on!  Hal, are you listening?