An Ode To An Old Friend

We’re gathered here today, readers, to mourn the death of my laptop: a Lenovo, but I’m not sure what model. Sorry, I’m not a very techy person. She’s grey if that helps?

Just to be clear, she isn’t dead yet. But it is a matter of time.

I’m writing this in anticipation. I think its better this way, so these words are pressed on her keys and not something else.

I remember the day I brought her home from the laptop pound:

My previous laptop (may she rest in piece) had a glass of red wine spilled on her, and no amount of dabbing with paper towels could bring her back.

As someone who didn’t, and still doesn’t, own a television, my laptop was my only source of entertainment, but more than that, a source of companionship. So I rushed out to buy a new one that very night, while the corpse of my previous laptop (may she rest in peace) was still warm.

Rushing off to Currys PC World late on a Saturday evening, looking at all the models. This wasn’t a decision to be made lightly, using my head. No, feeling was needed here. My heart had to make this decision.

I ended up pointing at my Lenovo, eyes growing wet.

“That’s the one,” I said to the sales person following me around. “I knew I’d know it when I saw it. That’s the one.”

It turned out she was the second cheapest in the store, purely a coincidence, but important, because I didn’t want to come across cheap.

It’s like when you’re strapped for cash but you’re on a date and you’re ordering wine: you order the second cheapest bottle to look like a big shot.

A friend later told me that any brand new laptop for only £400 wouldn’t last more than a couple of years. That was 2017. The old girl has doubled expectations, proved her doubters wrong.

But there was a problem from day one, when I suspected my friend might be right: I realised she ran on Windows 10, otherwise known as computer cancer. You might think this would be something I’d check before parting with £400, but like I said, my heart was handing out my bank card, my head had nothing to do with it.

Like a fleshy lump on your testicle, Windows 10 was always something to keep an eye on with concern, give a prod every now and then and reassure yourself it was nothing to worry about, but deep down knowing it could be a serious problem some day.

Also, what’s the deal with modern laptops not having disk drives? I wanted to watch some Batman: The Animated Series on DVD when I got home, but I didn’t realise she had no disk drive to do this.

“That’s standard these days,” the sales man at Currys PC World explained to me when I’d rushed back, laptop back in box, demanding an exchange. “Everyone streams nowadays, see? What you want to do is buy an external DVD player which you can plug in to the USB drive.” Seeing the panicked look on my face he gave me a wink and said: “Come on, I’ll show you our cheapest options.”

Another £25 later and I was back home again. I apologised to my laptop that our relationship had gotten off to such a tumultuous start, and promised nothing but good times from here on out.

And what good times we had.

Her beeping every time I pressed an invalid key pierced the silence of my empty studio apartment.

Her limitations were endearing. Often I’d find some program or basic flash game online and would be told my laptop didn’t meet the minimum requirements to run it. I’d watch as my friends and family, with far older machines, sat with 10 Chrome windows open, each with around 14 tabs, and their laptops would be running fine, taking it in their stride.

Her unpredictability was almost like a personality: “Oh, I wonder what sort of mood my laptop is in today. I hope a good one because I have a lot of Youtube videos I need to watch.”

My old girl needed to be treated with respect, needed to go at her own pace, one thing at a time. Our flaws are often our most attractive quality.

Then the Windows 10 updates started to come. I’d delayed them as long as I could, of course, but there reached a point when things stopped working without them. Damn Bill Gates. The cancer had started to spread.

Suddenly I could only have a few things open at once or the disk usage would inexplicably jump up to 100% and everything would start crashing.

When something became unresponsive and said “not responding”, I’d hit Ctrl Alt Delete to bring up my Task Manager, and after about 3 minutes of waiting, it too became unresponsive and said “not responding.”

It’s like if you go to your doctor because you’re sick but they can’t see you because they themselves are under the weather. Sure, it happens, but it’s bloody inconvenient.

I tried to fix her myself, Googling fixes for the issues I was experiencing, seeing how my laptop was not alone in the Windows 10 suffering it was forced to endure. But nothing worked. I realised then it was terminal, but I don’t know how long we have left.

I aim to enjoy our remaining time together, however limited it may be.

I can see the end coming. It’ll be soon I think. I back up every 20 or 30 minutes. Now, every time there’s a delay of a few seconds when I click something, I tense up and scramble to hit Ctrl S on anything I’ve been working on, expecting the laptop to suddenly crash, go blue screen, explode, or worse, just go black forever.

Sometimes the hardest part is the waiting.

Obviously I’d buy a new laptop now, or pay for her to be fixed, but I’m skint. I’ll probably just use my wife’s when the end comes. Hers is about 9 years old and runs like a dream.

So I’m saying my goodbyes now. It was nice knowing you, old girl.

I wish your warranty was five years and not two.

* * *