Susie and the Computer Guy

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, Fran, 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. He just didn’t have the time yet – Christmas and New Year being the busiest time in the year for chefs and cooks.

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 Fran.

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

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

Then, one day I couldn’t stand to see her there. I ordered a taxi, gathered Susie into my arms and took her down town to the computer 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 her,” I asked.

She sucked on her chewing gum. “Baldy,” she yelled over her left shoulder. There was 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 her,” I implored. The shop girl gave him an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“I can’t part with her. She had been my friend for a long time.” 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 Susie down between two other sickly looking computers languishing on the floor of the shop. 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 in a ‘nursey’ kind of voice, ‘she’ll be feeling better and ready to go home with you, I think”

Still I lingered. It felt like leaving my child in hospital. “We’ll phone you – even its bad news,” she said sympathically.

I fled out the door.

A week passed and another. No telephone call. Resolutely I took the bus into the town centre. If Susie wasn’t fixable I wasn’t leaving her there any longer with strangers. I’d bring her home and give her decent end to her many years of faithful service.

The girl with the cheek art was still there.

“Baldy,” she shouted over her left shoulder. “Woman here to see you…about Susie…”

My heart plummeted. My stomach churned. 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 son. 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 lovingly place Susie into it. Walking on air I headed for the waiting taxi and home.

Fran raised his eyes to Heaven and declared, “That man in the computer shop deserved a noble prize. That thing is only fit for the bin.”

In keeping with Susie’s aging status I decided to reduce her workload and with the nice young man’s help in the computer shop I bought a brand new laptop and he customised it to all my wants and loaded it up with all the programmes I needed.

But I still used Susie.

Why am I telling you all this now?”

Well because, Susie’s replacement, replacement now needs replacing.

“Update? Buy new?

The man in the computer shop is still just as kind. “Bring it in and we’ll have a look and see if its memory can take Windows 10,” he says.

I suppose you could say my present laptop – which may or may not take Windows 10 – Susie would be its great granny. But I don’t trust it – not the way I trusted Susie. It hasn’t the same staying power. Some days I think it just thinks – bugger this I’m off…and off it goes.

I know Susie will be glad I haven’t yet joined the “throwaway society”.

But boy am I tempted when just as I get going with a whoosh it shows me its blank face.

When I buy a new laptop I know where I’ll be shopping – in the computer shop – Moore Tec Upper Main Street.

You’ll get service with kindness – just what seniors like me need…

Gemma Hill 2020