Twilight zone is invading my life and I need an escape!
My dinosaur Microsoft Surface from 2012 was put to rest a couple of years ago. Microsoft was phasing it out and I had no say in the matter. I purchased a new Surface laptop, and was informed that my Microsoft Office could not be transferred to my new one! I need to pay a yearly fee to use Office on this one.
So I bit the bullet, after much discussion with anyone that would listen to me. It wasn’t right, but I had to accept it. My old surface was sufficient for me but because they were phasing it out it cost me a lot of money and much anguish getting a new one. I didn’t buy the warranty and after 13 months, this came back to bite me in the ass.
Contacting Microsoft directly about this malfunction, on my barely just over-a-year-old Surface, produced a very nice response from them. They told me to pack it up and send it back and they would ship me a new one… and charge me for it. I have no words for how that made me feel, and I’m a writer! f###ing Microsoft, not very original, but man I was pissed.
Searching all my options, I was finally at a loss. My charging cord would not work, a new one didn’t help and my computer was dead to me! A last resort was a call to an ad in the paper, a guy who fixed computers in his home. I delivered it to him one dark evening and said my goodbyes, it was a lost cause, and I had no hope.
The next morning the same guy called to tell me he had my computer up AND running. OMG, I was so happy, no one at Best Buy could fix it and that was where I had bought it. Picking it up, I was one happy puppy. My life was on that computer and it was, in essence, dead to me and now was alive!
You are not going to believe how he ‘fixed’ it. He explained how he plugged an iPhone charging cord into the opposite side of my ‘Surface’ and Viola’. How does that even make sense? Well, I had my computer back and all it cost me was an iPhone charging cord. All my writings and files of stuff were now back in my life.
Fast forward six or eight months and now this pos (piece of shit) is quitting on me, and refusing to start up again. I tried everything except taking an axe to it. Being that I don’t own an axe, that was out. I bite the bullet and decide it’s time to take it in and buy a new one, hoping like hell that they can transfer everything over.
If it won’t start, they can still transfer stuff, right? As I’m about to do this I hear a familiar little music sound of it coming to life. I’m in shock, my joy is so overwhelming I want to do a little dance.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and I had made an overnight trip to my sisters. When I got home it wouldn’t turn on again! Oh hell, really? After a few days of pissing around with it, I gave up and decided it was time to take it in and buy a new one. I was researching prices on my phone when I heard that familiar musical sound of it rebooting and coming to life!
My joy once again knew no bounds, how was this even possible? Thank goodness I have my phone to fall back on to check in on Facebook. Keeping up with what’s happening in the world, what did we do without social media? Please Lord don’t ever let me lose my phone with my 6000 pictures of my 7-year-old granddaughter.
Back to the present and I’m now in Yuma Arizona. My computer went back into hibernation mode on the flight over and now five days later I need to deal with it. That sucker would not start back up and this time it really is toast. I pack it up, get in the car, and head for Staples intent on buying a new computer.
As I round the corner on the last leg to Staples I hear a familiar noise… I look at all the gauges on the car and find nothing amiss. I then pull over to the curb and rip my computer outta the case it’s in. OMG Voila’ it is alive and kicking and I feel like it is a miracle… shit, it’s not even plugged in!
I feel like I’m in a twilight zone and desperately want to roll with it. A new computer is going to cost me plenty. What is happening here? The joy I’m feeling is finally tempered with common sense and a girlfriend’s advice.
Of course, it’s eventually going to quit again, and I need to get it to wherever I’m buying the new one. I have my precious book, which is three-quarters finished, on here. Stuff needs to be transferred over and it would kill me to lose everything I’ve written so far. I need to get out of this twilight zone…
copyright
November 3rd 2024