Susie

Susie

I knew it’s was  ridiculous but as I began to clean out Susie, my old computer for the last time I feel as if I was betraying her. Why did I name her Susie? Isn’t it obvious? No man would work so hard and be as faithful and forgiving as she has been since I got her in 1995. She was my first computer. The one I struggled to learn on; the one who forgave me when I deleted half her brain power and left her gasping for survival. But regardless of what I did she restarted and bravely met the needs of her idiot, illiterate techno keyboard puncher.

As I became more techno savvy I bought a shiny new laptop and later, a newer, faster computer.  But my heart belonged to Susie and I would inevitably find myself sitting in front of her screen tapping the keys.

Beginning to systematically delete programme by programme from the hard drive I felt as if I was unhooking her from her life supports. I was causing her to die.  I found myself apologising. “That new piece of junk will never help me or pull me out of as many computer scrapes as you have,” I soothed touching her bereft face.

My husband, Ben, soothed my frayed nerves and promised he would take her personally to the recycling bin; He wouldn’t leave her to be tossed carelessly in with all the other rejected and abandoned software. He put her in himself.

Days passed. Christmas came and went. The New Year came in with a flurry. Susie’s blank face still looked out from the corner where I’d put her. “I can’t stand to look at her dead face. When are you going to put her out of her misery,” I bawled at Ben.

“I will. As soon as I get time,” he barked back.

“Procrastination – putting things off- that’s his worst fault,” I’d apologise to Susie’s blank stare.

Then, one day I ordered a taxi, gathered Susie into my arms and took her down town to the Fix Anything shop. The girl behind the counter scratched her facial tattoo and frowned. “It’s very old,” she commented moving the chewing gum around in her mouth.

“Can you fix it,” I asked.

She sucked on her chewing gum. “Baldy,” she yelled over her left shoulder. There a distant rumble of a response but no one appeared.

“Woman here to ask you something,” she shouted just as a young man with a bushy Afro came out the door behind her.

“Can you fix it,” I implored. The shop girl gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “I can’t part with it.”  I could hear the desperation in my voice. There was a long pregnant pause.“We’ll see what we can do,” Baldy finally murmured. My heart jumped. Maybe there was still hope for Susie.

I stuck my hands in my coat pockets to keep me from stroking her goodbye as the girl, with a kinder looked reached out and placed her down between two other sickly looking computers.  I stood around uncertainly going  from one foot to the other. “Aren’t you going to put a sticker with her name – my name on it,” I finished hastily.  The gum chewing tattoo stopped moving. “I think I’ll remember it – and you,” she said dryly.

I cast Susie a last lingering glance. “Come back in a week,” the girl said turning to another customer. “I lingered. It felt like leaving my child in hospital.  “We’ll phone you – if Baldy can…” I fled out the door before she could finish ..

A week passed. No telephone call. Resolutely I took the bus into the town centre. If Susie wasn’t fixable I wasn’t leaving her there with strangers. I’d take her to the recycling bin myself. The girl with the cheek art was still there.

“Baldy,” she shouted over her left shoulder. “Woman here to see you.” My heart plummeted.  I felt sick.It was going to be bad news.

“It’s booted up and ready to go home,” Baldy said with a pleased smile. He wasn’t much older than my grandson but I had to fight down the urge to pull him towards me and plant a great big well deserved kiss on him. Quickly I whipped out a large Lydle shopping bag and pushed Susie into it. Walking on air I headed for the taxi rank and home.