Little Things

The world was a little different Tuesday than it needed to be, in my opinion. I have a new PC, generously given to me by a very good friend, and on it, he's installed all sorts of programs, features, and other things designed to make my life easier. Anything is easier than trying to use a 4MB workstation for anything in the year 2009, which is what I was previously doing. This new computer is a slate-blue compaq with a digital clock. On the carcass. It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen, but it keeps great time.

It's been my observation over time that things that are free are never really free. Take love, for instance. There isn't any monetary exchange, but there is certainly an emotional one. You increase your own vulnerability, become engaged and concerned with the events in anothers' life, and you are so committed. It's worse than say, getting a prostitute. With the concubine, there is a simple exchange of services for a set fee, the deal is done, and there's nothing left, good or bad, but an empty wallet. Great stuff.

Or take this slate-blue Compaq as another example. Now, I didn't pay a dime for the thing, but in many ways I wish I did. I can't return it for something different, and by this time I'd almost be insistent on an exchange for another carcass with a digital clock. Or even an analog clock. I wouldn't care anymore--I would have to have a clock on my computer. I've become used to it. I don't even know where you would go to find a computer with a clock mounted on the carcass. But there, at my feet, it sits.

I left very few instructions with Tim, the generous lifelong friend who set me up with this workstation. One of the instructions was that my older version of Windows Office xp should be installed on the new unit. I have my reasons for this. One, it's easy to use. Two, I can accomplish what I want to very quickly on that program. Sure, it has it's faults--I can't perform air traffic control from that software--but I can compose business letters, update invoicing, and crank out estimates for jobs in a very efficient manner. It's kind of like the clock, inasmuch as it became something I knew and trusted.

But when I got the new workstation, and Tim was proudly showing it off to me--I remember the morning like it was yesterday--I was looking at the neatly arranged icons on the desktop, and I saw the "Office 2007" icon there. I pointed at the flat screen enough to make the plasma bleed just a bit, and I asked Tim, "Now, what the hell did I say about that?"

Tim started laughing, and said, "Oh, that? I just thought you might want to enter the new millennium." He saw that I was upset, still. "Try it. It's good. You'll like it."

"I'm quite sure I will not like it," I told him. I'd only used the program on a very limited basis on my business partner's laptop, and it had already caused me considerable grief in a very short period of time. "Not to bitch about something that's free to me, but goddamn, Tim--this is about the only thing I mentioned."

"It'll be fine," he insisted. "All your old files will work on this--see?" and he put a disc in with all my old files and ramblings, and sure enough, they all popped up in the new software. "It's got this compatibility mode, see, and..." he continued on and on about the merits of the new software, but I was done listening as soon as I saw the new icons there. I knew what was going to happen.

So that's how it started, this now ongoing struggle with my "new" software. Tuesday found me needing to crank out three estimates, compose a bunch of sales projections, finish a business plan and etc. It was to be a monumentally busy day. So I started with the simplest thing on the list. An estimate. I got through about two-thirds of it without incident when something happened. I don't know what I did, but now the computer had taken over the editing of my document. It was citing all the errors and suggestions it had to make it a better document, and it had inserted an entire column comprising the right side of the page detailing all the formatting decisions I had elected to make. Furthermore, any text I attempted to insert was automatically introduced in red, and any changes I tried to make to the estimate resulted in a red line being inserted over the text, which it now refused to delete. It sure as hell was good at telling me I was trying to delete it, though.

A person with a modicum of patience would have handled this situation much differently than I. There was lots of yelling. Lots. In moments of misguided aggression, I bitchslapped the monitor on more than one occasion. The monitor, of course, is just like the computer. It's simply doing what it's user is telling it to do. This is fine in the world of the rational. In a world of impatience, it is an incorrigible transgression.

Finally, I had to do something different. Another great friend of mine works IT in a bank. Surely he knows what to do, I thought to myself, and I sent him a text message: 'I need advice. I have to learn how to use office2007 by noon. Does this have help or a tutorial? I am going to destroy timbox if i dont get it soon.' It should be noted that any "free" PC provided by Tim is by default called "Timbox." Technically speaking, this is Timbox2.0 here. He'd previously provided me with the 4MB computer, which worked just fine until it didn't work.

Bryan responded by saying that they didn't use 2007 at the bank--they still used the xp programs, which their employees can use without having to send them all to special classes. He then wanted, naturally, to know why I had to know all this by noon.

I sent another text: 'Who is the least patient person you have ever met?'

Re replied: 'You' So I got the list out of my wallet, and chalked up another easy sale. Bryan knows thousands of people. Ouch. He replied immediately. I sent another message, this one pleading him to think harder--that there must be someone else a little more high strung than myself. He replied after a couple of minutes that perhaps our junior high shop teacher was right there with me, but he wouldn't commit one way or the other. This is a friendly means among my peers to keep me from snapping, I suspect...

I thanked him for his help and I took a leave from the computer. I had to do something else, because I was simply going crazy that I couldn't navigate this new system in a yes/no world. This fucking program was screaming 'maybe!' back at any command I tried to give it, and I couldn't handle it anymore. I dragged out my air compressor, and set out to repair the front door window. I'd broken it one of the previous times I'd gotten stuck in a snowdrift right outside in the yard. Not enough distance to cool myself off, apparently, without a little misguided aggression...

I called my Mom. I already had my list out, and I figured I'd knock out another easy one. She is the most patient person I know. She's had to deal with me from the start, and I don't know how anyone could do that...I can't deal with myself. Anyway, we talked for a bit, and I finally plugged in the air compressor. While I'm on the phone with my mother. She said some things that I obviously was unable to hear, until I walked outside with the phone.

"Did you just turn on a saw? Goodness, you know I can't hear you when you're running your tools."

"No. That's the air compressor. Sorry about that." She went on to ask why I had the compressor going, and I had to explain the whole window thing, and so on and so on...she'd heard shit like this before. Finally, I had to ask: "Who's the most impatient person you've ever known?"

"My son?" and she chuckled.

"Anyone else?" I asked.

"Your father, for a long time didn't have very much patience at all. He's mellowed out quite a bit, I'm sure you've noticed."

I had noticed, and at that moment he came up the drive. He works in town and occassionally comes over for coffee break. This was one of those days. I let mom off the phone and got a cup ready when he came in. We greeted, and he asked about the compressor.

"Well, I'm fixing the door pane. You know--The one I broke?"

He acted a bit like he'd forgotten about it, but I knew he hadn't. "Oh. Why'd you unplug the compressor?" I had unplugged and moved the bubble, the hose and the gun, partly to get it out of the way. The entry door I was fixing was in the kitchen.

"You hear that hissing. That's the 'fixed' version of those Porter Cable compressors. I've got another one that's nearly identical that has the same problem with the valves. I leave it plugged in right now, it will run constantly." I was actually a little inconvenienced I'd been unable to just finish the job before he got there. It was about a five minute commitment, but it would have to wait. I had to find the brad nails--somewhere in the garage, or in the barn, or in the truck--that project in and of itself might take all day.

He went on to talk about some problem he was having with his air bubble, and to be honest, I don't at all remember what he was talking about. My mind was very much drifting...When there was a break in whatever that conversation was about, I asked him the standard question: Anyone more impatient than myself?

Dad took a sip of coffee, a slight drag off the Camel he was smoking, and shot me a kind of sideways glance with a smirk, "You know, some people have accused me of not being very patient myself."

"Yeah, but you're better now. How did that happen? Did you just mellow with age? I mean--did you do anything about it, or did it just happen?" I remembered an incident when I was very young--I don't even know if my brother and sister were around yet--and the chain saw wasn't working. I'm almost positive it had something to do with the pull cord, or eventual lack thereof. Anyway, that situation did not end well. There is sheer-faced stone bluff of about 25 feet behind my folks house. That saw headed over that drop-off. It was not an accident.

"I guess I just learned how to not sweat the little things," he said. "you know, not many things acutally matter." Now I remembered a thought he had jotted down in college. I'd been in all kinds of trouble with the law, and on that note (which was an identical piece of memo paper I was currently carrying in my wallet) he had written, 'NOTHING EVER MATTERS VERY MUCH, AND VERY RARELY DOES ANYTHING EVEN MATTER AT ALL.' I had taken it from the top drawer of his desk, and held it with me for years. I tried to use it as a personal philosophy, but my individual application of the thought was greatly flawed. I wondered if that was something he'd picked up from someone else, if my personal struggles of the day had inspired it, or how that all came about...maybe I'll find out someday.

The rest of the day didn't go very well. I could say that it didn't even go at all. I was exhausted from the rush of getting the kitchen remodel wrapped up, and was down to a little bit of grouting. I was infuriated at the computer for just not working the way I wished it would work, and I decided a nap would help my overall assessment of my situation. I went to sleep somewhere around noon, and awoke somewhere around midnight. I must have been very tired, but I still had substantial work to do.