Attacked

I was attacked today. I was minding my own business, trying to do some research, when out of the blue...

BOOM!

A message popped up on my screen, informing me that my computer was being infected by all sorts of nasty viruses and malware. I'm not sure what I did to deserve it, and I'm not sure why my Internet security was taking a holiday just then; all I know is, I am writing this blog on someone else's computer because mine is being flushed and cleaned and thoroughly disinfected at the computer guy's place.

Tiny silver lining: my computer was needing a checkup anyway, and at the rate I was getting around to it taking to someone to have it cleaned out and have my DVD drive fixed, I was never going to get around to it. Almost three years is a long time to own a thing without having any maintenance on it.

Big black cumulonimbus cloud full of lightning an' thunder an' golfball-sized hail an' stuff: I could have lost everything on my computer to those nasty digital creepy-crawlies. I do have backups of things on CDs, so that's a mercy, but I could have had personal information stolen as well. I mean, I don't think I keep anything very personal on my computer, but you never know....

The funny thing is this: my sister-in-law told me the other day, when I baby-sat her children, that she had not ever been away from them for that amount of time. I now know, to a small extent, how she must have felt. Until now, I have not, since becoming the proud proprietor of my HP laptop computer (I'm not exactly certain why I was proud of owning an HP laptop, but I think it's because I was naive at the time regarding the perceived quality of the d--- piece of technological poo with which I was purchasing), ever been separated from it like this. Not that I'm on it all the time, you understand, (though I am on it a lot) but it's always been there when I needed it. Now, I need it, I want it, and I can't have it because some practically joking sphincter decided to relieve himself on my dual-core processor and already overworker hard drive. You know, I keep going to my room to do work on my computer, only to rediscover that it isn't ther, and that it isn't even in my house. It's an odd feeling, this involuntary absence, sort of like sitting down to a chair you know was behind you the last time you looked and finding, once you've fallen on your buttocks, that someone thought that it would be funny to pull it away at the last second. Only it isn't funny at all, and the chair thief not only won't give your seat back, but he put his fist through it and, until you've paid him to re-upholster it, he won't give it back.

Wait a minute. Did I say it was the funny thing? I meant the annoying-as-a-blowfly-stuck-up-your-left-nostril-that-won't-come-out sort of thing.

Ultimately, "so it goes" (though more in the Billy Joel sense rather than in the Kurt Vonnegut sense, but neither is really accurate) and c'est la vie, etc.--and of course I'm taking solace from the fact that it's raining on those who deserve the unwanted precipitation as well as on me--but this whole nefarious--not hilarious--situation is still irritating enough that even Tiny Tim might forego his usual charity and cheerfulness, raise his glass of warm milk in his right hand while brandishing his crutch like a weapon with the left, and raspily cry, "D--- those chair thieves, every one."