Jolana Malkston

When Macho Guy met his first computer, there was no love at first sight. There was no grudging respect at first sight. There was no resigned tolerance at first sight. Heck no. When Macho Guy got his first gander at the computer his company foisted on him, it was loathing at first sight. He used it grudgingly, the engineer in him fiercely clinging to his trusty slide rule.

On the other hand, I had a different emotional reaction to that first computer. I broke out in a cold sweat. The thought of using it terrified me. All I had to do was place one finger on the wrong key and the computer would explode or implode or shout, “Warning! Warning, Will Robinson!” So, I gave the computer a wide berth. I didn’t want to be the one who dispatched it to cyber-heaven.

One day soon afterward, Macho Guy brought home a word processing application to load onto the computer. Firstborn was writing basic computer programs in school by then, so of course he already knew how to operate the application.

Firstborn showed me the word processing ropes. After he showed me how to launch the application and how to use the menus, he began ticking off the time and work saving features. First, he told me I could move blocks of text around until they were where I wanted them to be without having to retype, and then he demonstrated how to do it.

I was agog. Really? I can do that? Today must be Christmas.

Typing and spelling errors didn’t matter, he said. Spellcheck fixes them. No erasing of copies necessary. No retyping necessary.

Seriously? No matter how badly I type? Oh, thank you, Santa.

No more messy carbon copies, he said.  Just save the completed document, send it to the printer and print as many copies as I want.

Oh, wondrous marvel! I must be dreaming. Somebody pinch me.

Ouch! Must children take their parents so literally?

Everything changed from the moment I discovered the existence of word processing. As the world’s slowest and most inaccurate typist, I suddenly saw the computer as my new best friend. It was a defining moment for me. It motivated me to overcome my anxiety and learn how to compute.

I rushed to sign up for computer classes at our local community college. My boys were thrilled. Now they would get to see how well Mom did in school and nag her to get good grades. They hovered like baby vultures when I brought home my first test paper. An A, of course. I didn’t dare get anything less. I would never have heard the end of it.

To cut to the chase, I took to the computer like Garfield to lasagna. It was love at second sight. I adored the computer and couldn’t wait to get one of my own. I became computer literate, but more intuitive than expert. I feel my way around computer apps. I discover hidden features by accident. I’m curious. I’m adventurous. I’m fearless.

I take that back. I’m never fearless when Macho Guy goes anywhere near my computer. The awful truth is that it wasn’t long before Firstborn, Little Brother and I discovered that Macho Guy is Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers. His touch—his mere presence in the same room—is devastating and sometimes lethal to computers. We never discovered how or why. To employ an overused phrase, it is what it is, and it can be very, very scary to be away from home and learn that Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers has your computer in his crosshairs.

For instance, there was the time I went to Atlanta, Georgia for an RWA^® National Conference. I couldn’t very well cart my mini-tower computer onto the jet with me. It had to remain behind in my home office where it was unfortunately vulnerable to unforeseen circumstances.

As usual, my writer buds and I were hanging out in the lounge after dinner. We parked ourselves on the floor in a corner of the room (all the chairs and tables were occupied) with adult beverages in hand. We were dishing about the conference and our editor/agent appointments when my cellphone rang. It was Macho Guy.

We could barely hear each other over the din in the lounge, most of it coming from my buds. I thought I heard him say something about a storm and lightening. With a finger in one ear and my cellphone pressed against the other, I asked him to repeat what he said.

He said there was a thunderstorm the previous night. Fortunately, the lightening missed our house. It struck a tall and beautiful blue spruce tree in our front yard leaving a vertical scar on its bark the full length of its trunk, and the energy from the strike blew the nearby newly planted young plum tree right out of the ground. Macho Guy had to replant it come morning.

I almost spilled my merlot down the front of my suit. We both had top of the line UPS devices protecting our computers from power outages and surges, but the huge power surge a lightening strike would create could take out those UPS devices, the computers and everything electronic in the vicinity. Fearing the worst, I asked if the UPS devices managed to protect our computers.

Yes, they had. It looked to him as if both UPS devices died in the line of duty, and the computers they protected lived to compute another day. Whew! I asked if we lost power. No, he said we didn’t lose power, only our Internet connection but said he was taking care of it.

ME: What do you mean, you’re taking care of it?

MACHO GUY: I’m on the other phone with the cable guy.

ME: You mean tech support?

MACHO GUY: Yeah, the cable guy is going to help me get us back online, but he says we need your computer’s password.

ME: My computer password? Why do you—Oh. My. God! Are you in my office?

MACHO GUY: Yep. The cable guy made me do that power down and power up thing, and the modem is in your office, so—

ME: [I take a huge swig of merlot as visions of all my manuscripts being accidentally deleted flash before my eyes.] Um, Sweetheart? You haven’t touched my computer, have you?

MACHO GUY: Uh-huh, the cable guy had me turn it on. He says we might need to change some of the settings.

ME: No! No changing settings. Do not touch my computer again. Stop what you’re doing this instant and get the [expletive deleted] away from my computer! Now. Right now. Tell the tech support guy I’ll take care of it when I get home and hang up!!

MACHO GUY: But—

ME: No buts! Hang up on him and leave my office. I mean it. I want you out of there now. Don’t touch anything. Don’t look at anything. Don’t even breathe on anything. You know you’re the kiss of death to computers.

MACHO GUY: I am not the kiss of death to computers. I hate it when you say that. It’s not true.

ME: Three dead computers would disagree with you and so would my laptop. Every time I let you use my laptop to read your email when we’re traveling, it doesn’t work right afterward and I have to fix it. So don’t tell me you’re not the kiss of death.

MACHO GUY; [He grumbled something unintelligible that I assumed was swearing.]

ME: Are you out of my office yet?

I had grown so pale and was shaking so hard that after I hung up with Macho Guy, my buds signaled the waitress for me to order another glass of merlot ASAP. I sort of lost it, I guess. I ranted about lightening and power surges and that Macho Guy probably killed my computer because I wasn’t there to protect it from him. I couldn’t stop thinking of the possibility that all the data on my hard drive no longer existed. I believe I may have had more than one additional glass of merlot.

I assessed the lightening damage when I returned home. There was a large starburst pattern in the soil surrounding the base of the blue spruce where the lightening’s energy penetrated the ground. The blue spruce was once the most beautiful tree on our property, but I could see by the large gaping scar left by the lightening that the poor tree was doomed. I learned that the lightening’s energy had also travelled under our driveway and zapped our next-door neighbor’s brand new widescreen TV, but didn’t touch their old TV. That just wasn’t fair.

I discovered to my dismay that the lightening strike did a rather thorough job on our home office equipment. The modem was a goner, but the cable company would replace that. The UPS devices were goners and would need replacing. [Cha-ching!] Our all-in-one printer was a goner and had to be replaced. [Cha-ching!] Even the Ethernet cards in both of our computers were fried and we would have to buy replacements. [Cha-ching!] Ouch, ouch and ouch!

Fortunately the computers survived without any additional damage and so did my manuscripts and other vital data, no thanks to Macho Guy, but please don’t tell him that. Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers really hates to hear it.