Memoirs of a Laptop

The first thing I remember was waking up in a little room. When my owner lifted me out of my box, just high enough to see outside, I observed that I had arrived in an apartment in the middle of a city. My owner was quite enthralled with me. I gathered that she was not around her usual crowd, and there were many nights we did nothing but spend time together when she got home from work. I remember her roommate and others coming by the room asking if she wanted to “go out” – whatever that meant. She always smiled and politely told them “no thanks.” One day when she was on the phone I heard her tell someone that she didn’t spend much time outside work with her colleagues because she wasn’t old enough to go where they went. That didn’t really make sense to me, but I was happy to be there to help her write her stories.

It made more sense when, after a few months, I was packed up and found myself in an entirely new locale – a dorm room in the middle of the country. I had assumed my owner was working full time, but ends up she was doing something called an internship and was still finishing up college. Life was much different when we went there; she was in and out all the time, surrounded by friends. She laughed much more. But we still spent lots of time together, sometimes into small hours of the morning when she was putting the last touches on her foreign policy papers. She seemed to dislike those most of all. She’d mutter something about being a domestic policy person and trudge on. I would go with her to class and to something called student senate meetings, which seemed to consist of lots of instant messaging punctuated by occasional verbalization. This was also the era she developed the bad habit of carrying me by my screen – a fact that will come into play later.

Those months also marked the first time I saw her cry. She would often use me to talk to friends both far and near, sometimes banging on my keyboard with frustration and hurt. She’d stare at the words being typed back and forth and would sometimes seem in so much anguish, I could hardly bear it. I never understood what they were talking about, but I could tell they were not trivial matters.

I remember one week in particular she used me to journal. This practice was unusual for her, but she was writing to her mother, who happened to be out of the country for a few weeks, and she wanted to easily send her composition upon its completion. Much was going on around that time; classes were nearing an end, she was deciding between job offers, and there was some dance everyone was going to that she declined to attend. Somehow that made me sad.

Next thing I knew, I was packed with a multitude of other things onto a van. I heard my owner and her friend say their destination was North Carolina. They seemed excited to go there. Upon their arrival, I had loads of new data within a matter of days, and my owner was creating all sorts of spreadsheets and posters on me. We had great fun.

But it was short lived. Not two weeks later, my owner and I were back on a van, headed back to where we came from. After a brief stint in my owner’s home state, I was again packed and made the long trip from San Diego, California to Portland, Oregon. We stopped several times along the way, including one unwelcome stop where something was wrong with the car. But it was fixed – my owner’s father seemed very handy like that – and on we went.

My experience in Oregon started very much like my experience in North Carolina, but it lasted ever so much longer. The spreadsheets were loaded and poured over; I actually came to work with my owner every day. She had a good deal of fun, whatever she was doing. It seemed to entail a good deal of phone calling, decorating her cubicle, and eating the worst sort of food. I think they called it campaigning.

After the long months of work, I began feeling slightly weary; so when we headed back to California, it was a welcome change. My owner now spent time working on some of her pet projects, and she would spend hours letting her fingers fly over the keys, creating stories. I don’t know enough to tell you if they were any good, but I can tell you that the process of composition did the writer much good indeed.

Yet another change of scene then occurred. After a long flight, we returned somewhere that seemed familiar… yet quite different. I found my owner in familiar company. She and two friends apparently found an apartment not far from where I was first came into my owner’s service. I liked it there very much, as I was surrounded by other laptops that had become quite familiar to me during my year at college.
But age started to show. One day, as she attempted to show something exciting – whether it was a picture or a YouTube video, I cannot recall – and in the process of moving me, one side of my screen snapped, not quite clean off, but near close enough. My owner was devastated. I know she felt guilty for mistreating me in my earlier years.

That was when the real problems started. I often succumbed to something my owner called the Blue Screen of Death. I could never figure out what that was, but it sounded ominous. Sometimes, she would press my power button, and I would wake up – but my screen would be blank, so she couldn’t see what I was doing. This landed me in what my owner called the computer hospital but what was really some guy’s basement. But he took care of me well enough, and moved some wires to prevent them from being pinched and shorting out my screen. He did have to tell my owner news that was equally sad for my owner and me: the part that kept my screen and keyboard together was no longer manufactured, and there was little he could do to fix it. I am, after all, made of plastic.

My owner did the best she could after that. She was very gentle with my screen, and I did my best to stay up; but sometimes, I just didn’t have the strength to keep it up. But what was far worse was my memory loss. I so enjoyed being the repository of my owner’s pictures in particular, which told the stories of trips and events and wonderful people, but she kept adding and adding until there was hardly any room for me to run my programs when I was boot up, much less run internet searches while playing Pandora. Years of jostling also resulted in the loss of my DVD capabilities. This caused great frustration for both of us. I wanted to do better, really, but I couldn’t help it.

We moved again, my owner and I, not too long ago. When she took me out to the local coffee shop, I recognized the area. I’m now very close to the first place I remember, the apartment in the city. Seems appropriate that I should retire here.

A big box arrived today. I know it contains my replacement because the name on the box is the same name that’s on me. I heard my owner tell someone that she isn’t going to get rid of me yet, that she isn’t ready. That made me feel quite satisfied. I know I cannot serve her the way she needs anymore, but I’m glad she’s not just tossing me aside as some are so liable to do. I’m glad she remembers the same things I do of these six long years. They have been rich, the being-carried-by-the-screen and jostling travel and all. And it is time for me to rest.