In all fairness, I did warn him that I’m a writer

My laptop is dead. This is bad. A writer needs a computer. There are some people like Ava who prefer handwriting their manuscripts, but not me. If I handwrite anything there’s so many cross outs and arrows moving things around you can’t even read it.

But alas, the laptop is giving up the ghost. It’s a disaster. I won’t go into its symptoms but they’re not pretty. If my computer could manifest snot, it would have a lot of it.

So I took it to the computer hospital. When I walked it I saw two likely computer doctors inside the door.

“We’re going to need and old priest and a young priest,” I said in all seriousness.

The guy started laughing. “Having some trouble with your computer?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” I followed him to the back counter.

I described my issues and he made appropriate faces of horror and pity. He told me he thought it might be my hard drive. I suspect he is right. He started typing into his system.

“Are we going to have to euthanize it?” I’m actually not thinking of putting it out of its misery. I don’t care if it suffers. It’s making me suffer. An eye for an eye is my way of thinking.

“No, I doubt it.” He tapped some more stuff into his computer.

“Maybe it’s just all the cat hair?” I suggested hopefully.

He laughed and then realized I wasn’t kidding. There was more tapping. “Oh, it could be. Is there a lot of cat hair?”

“Well, it depends.” I thought of Jojo Kitty and his prodigious shedding.

“The diagnostics should take 2 to 4 days, but at least it will tell us what’s wrong.”

“I know what’s wrong. It hates me.”

He laughed but it didn’t sound exactly mirthful. What does scared laughter sound like. “It’s an inanimate object. It doesn’t hate you.”

“You don’t know.”

I left my traitorous computer with him. As I left, I told him to keep an eye on it. It was known to be shifty.

As the door was closing, I could hear his computer keys tapping away. I’d really like to get a look at those notes. I’ll bet they have me pegged as a complete whack-a-doodle.