Briefing for a descent into computer hell

And suddenly the voice in the tower gained the confidence it had previously lacked. "The people who sold you the computer screwed you," I was told. "They loaded a different Windows onto your computer than the one they gave you on disc. They shouldn't have done that -- the two versions of Windows are incompatible. There's nothing we can do. You need to take it in somewhere for a reinstall and hope they can save your data. Sorry."

Over and out. We're prayin' for ya, son.

This couldn't be. All my work -- past writing and current deadline-hounded projects -- was in jeopardy. (No, I did not have back-up discs. Yes, I know. Shut up.) And since the vendor I'd originally purchased the computer from was a continent away and well past any warranty obligations, there wasn't even anybody I could usefully scream at. So I made do with those at hand. I cursed into the phone. I howled. I pleaded like a terminal patient trying to bargain with God. But at the other end of the phone sat a mere priest, his impressive and obscure incantations finally revealed as empty attempts to decipher the ineffable. "Sorry," he said. "Good luck."

It had been an unforeseen problem, certainly. But it's funny how the sense of doom had been building for hours anyway. What had been growing was the ominous understanding of my complete dependence -- the realization that my chosen career as a wrangler of English rests upon another language I don't even speak. Plus the painful truth that my freelancer's mastery of deadlines and financial uncertainty were not the marks of unflappability I took them for. An important question of character had been settled. I'm not stoic. I'm panicky. My palms sweat. The inside of my mouth becomes linen. I shake. Given the proper helpless circumstances, my brain turns to mush so that questions on sports or weather or my own name are apt to draw vacant stares, explosions of profanity, and eventually frustrated weeping. I had managed to convince myself that this wasn't true, so it hurt.

All of which led easily to a companion realization -- to return to my point -- that may seem painfully obvious, but nonetheless lacks power until it is somehow demonstrated: namely, that from morning till evening and on through the night we are floating upon processes and systems that we don't understand.

Happily, this particular glitch proved to have minor consequences. My data was indeed rescued -- I suffered only two and a half days' down time and a surprisingly small repair bill. But I live in a zone that, geologists constantly warn, is overdue for a major earthquake. Like my friends and neighbors, I have vaguely dreaded the event for years. Now, just as the plight of the terminal patient comes more readily to mind when you're bedridden with the flu, I find myself contemplating a complete societal meltdown and wondering how I'd do. I think I know. And I'm glad those Y2K doomsayers are full of shit.

Right?

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