Lorraine Sommerfeld: I’d rather give birth than buy a new computer
For three years, I've been using Ari's old laptop. He had looked disdainfully at my small machine and said, here, you can have this. But I warn you, next to that thing, this is a rocketship." He needed an upgrade but what he was spurning was ten times better than the one I had.
A few months ago, the screen segmented and made a shrieking noise. I quickly turned it off. A few hours later, it was fine. A week later it rapidly opened many random tabs, which I promptly closed and pretended hadn't happened.
Every couple of weeks, it would do some new weird thing that would scare me and I'd just close up shop for a bit. Two months ago, the speaker went, and I had to use a bluetooth headset if I wanted to hear anything. I decided this was acceptable. I started charging up my old computer, just in case.
Last week, I made the mistake of using it just on battery power, and I wondered what that weird smell was. That smell was a future fire. The entire screen froze on lines of code and I couldn't get out of it. I used all the tricks, made up a few new ones, and finally shut it all down. I emailed Ari the next morning, sending him a link to what I thought would be a good replacement.
You send the wrong link but yeah, buy whatever you want." I did not suffer through three hours of labour and 28 years of questionable parenting to be grateful for this response. I decided to teach him a lesson. I sourced reviews on laptops, found a new version of the previous one and found it on sale. Two can play at this game, I thought, as I boldly added to cart. As I pressed buy, Ari texted me.
We can sort it out tomorrow," he said. The kids were coming for dinner. I replied that I'd solved my problem and just ordered something. My phone rang instantly.
What did you do?"
I found one. I ordered it. It was on sale on Amazon."
Amazon is evil. Cancel it," he said. We'll go a Canadian place tomorrow."
You can cancel Amazon?"
Yes, Mom. See your name on the site? Click that. Now..."
Hey! There's a little cancel button right there!"
Click it."
It says it may or may not be able to cancel the order ... hey, I just got an email. It's cancelled!"
As I marvelled over the fact I could change my mind (or have it changed), I could hear Ari jamming through screens searching for the best replacement.
Can you go with a smaller screen?"
Hell no. And I need the big keyboard."
The problem is, the bigger ones are usually the more expensive ones...wait, here's one for $750. Can you do that?"
I like $500. I probably don't need all that horsepower you're looking at." He sighed through the phone, so I stopped talking.
Wait. This is good." He started listing a bunch of numbers that meant nothing to me. I stayed quiet because he was doing all the work.
There's only one left in stock."
Give them my Visa number!"
Instead, he drove from Hamilton to Oakville, picked up my new laptop and delivered it.
I'll set it up tomorrow," he said.
Everything is in the cloud," I said confidently. I don't really know what that means.
The next day, he started undoing everything.
Why do you have this?"
It said it will stop places spying on me."
Yeah. Because it's spying on you instead."
It's hard to know who you can trust," I said.
You trust me. That's it." He works in software security.
How can I not trust a kid who named my computer MOMCOMPUTER?