What would you amputate?
I admit it. I am completely attached to my computer. For some people, it’s their Blackberry. For some it’s their cell. For me, it’s my laptop. My life is on that machine. I do not even know my daughter’s address. It lives on my laptop. (She does move a lot). My calendar, favorite quotes, sticky notes with ideas for my next blog post, links to every place I love to go, rotating family pix…everything is there. Yeah, I know a lot of people keep it all in some online venue, but that doesn’t work for me. Nothing is as completely customizable as the laptop of my life. It WORKS for me as a vital organ, maintaining body and soul.
But this week, my laptop was amputated. Somewhere in the process of poking through tons of links and RSS feeds in an idea-gathering session, I (oops- I mean my laptop) picked up a virus.
Now, I am a careful person. I close suspicious windows from the task bar so as not to “touch” them. I religiously run back-ups and virus scans. But this Halloween season, the guy with the sickle got me. He amputated my laptop. I hope to have it back in a few days and am already trying to compile a list of the things I will have to reinstall IF the wonderful fix-it man is unable to save it all. In the process, I ask myself, “If you had to amputate one gadget from your life, what would you amputate?” Or, flipping it around, “Loss of what one gadget would make you feel permanently disabled?”
Cell phone? Car? DVR? Microwave? Digcam? (No fair nominating your alarm clock).
The corollary is that my Internet connection is nearly as vital. But even when Comcast dumps me for no apparent reason, my laptop is still there with me, allowing me to collect ideas in a sort of IV pouch until I can infuse them back into full circulation on the web. But without the laptop, the ideas drain onto the floor, causing massive blood loss from the site of the amputation.
So think of me and send me your technology tourniquets to stop the bleeding as I try to “live” on a borrowed laptop for a few days. And help me hope that I will not be forced into a complete transplant and risk rejecting the laptop if it is reimplanted without its familiar contents.
PS Don’t worry, I won’t email you. I don’t know your email address.
