Computer conspiracy

I sighed, tucked my hair behind my ears, got down on my hands and knees and crawled underneath the desk. The rear of the computer screen jutted over the back of the table above my head; my two colleagues were peering over the desk while I stared despairingly at the mess of tangled cords at the back of my ancient, virile computer. Which one, I wondered, led to the wretched keyboard above?

I mean come on, this is a confusing mess.

You see, just thirty minutes ago I was typing up something for work when the frustratingly moody keyboard, probably purchased while Shakespeare was penning Hamlet, suddenly, catastrophically, and belligerently, went on strike. It would only type IN CAPITALS, and yes, if you want to know, punctuation was completely out of the question. Instead of a full stop - . - it would do a little arrow thing - > - and so on, for all the symbols. This is no little problem. Firstly, punctuation kills (lame sub joke: Let’s eat, Grandma! vs Let’s eat Grandma!) and secondly all I do all day is type.

I told a colleague I still posted letters. She was horrified. We work in digital, you see. I should only send emails.

You see, I’m a words person. Words are what I do. And online. I’m a digital words person (I mean hello case in point – you’re reading my blog right now). So having a functional keyboard? Not exactly what I’d call an option for a successful career. Without a computer I am as pointless as Lindsey Lohan’s jail sentence, Cope’s parliamentary seats, or Naomi Campbell’s self-tanning lotion. Basically, without a computer, I am my office’s appendix.

“Did you manage to unplug it?” one of my colleagues asked, her voice wafting down to where I was crouching, lightly touching a cable and following it slowly and carefully up to – yes! – the keyboard. “Found it!” I called up to her, while pulling the purple sticky-outey bit out of one of the thousands of holes at the back of the PC.

My colleague leant me her keyboard (we were still hoping that is was just my keyboard throwing a tantrum), which I then plugged into the computer, hoping this one would actually work. I’d restarted the damned machine already, but because of my keyboard’s inability to act like a sane keyboard, I hadn’t been able to type in my password correctly – three strikes and you’re out.

I got up onto my knees, victorious, the new keyboard attached and – THUD – hit my head on the rear of the screen jutting out above me.

“What’s IT’s phone number?” I asked Sophia, rubbing my head. I started randomly hitting keys; yes – the new keyboard worked. However, rather daftly, I was typing in the ‘Password’ box. All I could see was a series of dots. Retrospectively, I see how stupid this was. The problem wasn’t that the old keyboard wouldn’t type (it was typing) it was just that it typed like a moron. I tried my password again; but it had now reached its limit and the computer petulantly locked me out. My uselessness had reached Everest-like proportions.

IT then told me over the phone that I needed to email them the problem.

Email them the problem?

EMAIL THEM THE PROBLEM?

I was just as capable of telepathically sending them a time-travelling unicorn as I was of EMAILING THEM THE PROBLEM.

Then genius struck me (well, genius struck Adéle, who suggested it to me) and I decided to type in the name box, not the password box. I could then see that this keyboard was also typing like someone with a perverse sense of humour and a very low IQ. So... it wasn’t the keyboard. It was the computer. The computer was purposefully, maliciously, trying to vex me.

The worst thing though, aside from the frustration and confusion, was that I realised:
a)    how useless I am without a computer
b)    how reliant we are on technology.

Everyone's plugged in these days. Clever pun, right? Right? Right.

What can we actually do without technology? Technology has tightly woven itself into the texture of our lives. Garage doors are controlled by a remote, we drive places, we listen to recorded music, we communicate via email, we entertain ourselves with movies, we manufacture with machines. Walking from my office to my car is probably the least interaction I have with technology on a given day, and even then I’m walking in mass produced shoes on a tarred road to a metal, technological cocoon – my car.

Beginning of the end

Maybe my computer was showing me who’s boss. It sure as hell wasn’t me. I sat back down in my chair, put my face in my hand and sighed. I had to email IT somehow. Then it slowly dawned on me that everything around me was a product of technology. As a society, we need technology; we are atrophying our ability to do things without technology.

GASP! Then it struck me! NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME FOR A COMPUTER REVOLUTION!

I mean, even my camera has artificial intelligence. It’s just a matter of time till they herd us up and turn us into Matrix-like batteries. And if my computer’s acting so mean now, well imagine what it would do if it had laser guns?

End to the revolution? My foot in this machine. Easy.

I idly tapped the keyboard while contemplating the robot revolution lying ahead – toaster ovens on the loose, cameras taking terrible pics and uploading them on Facebook, cars leading people astray, Blackberry’s sucking up the souls of their users, atom bombs going off; the catastrophic decline of society... I tapped M M M M, my mind running, when suddenly, for also no reason, the computer fixed itself and typed m m m m m.

I quickly logged back in. The robot revolution can wait till after my deadline.

Photo credits: n1n4j, Zhao!, Bruno Cordioli on Flickr and Samantha Steele.

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