So. Lots has happened. I have two stories and a sneak peek for you today.
Here are the facts: I don’t have a very good history with electronics. I’ve doused more phones than I care to admit, and once I drove away with my laptop on the roof of my car. I thought it was stolen until the neighbors brought it over, screen half off yet still working. Thats the thing- my electronic devices, and my car for that matter, are self healing. Eric rolls his eyes when I say this, but its true. If you don’t coddle it, if just ignore the problem, it fixes itself.
Now, I hesitate to admit that there has been a break in this trend…and I’m on my third laptop in three months.
I had Macbook Pro #1 since I was a senior in college. It treated me well, even if I didn’t always return the favor. I took it with me everywhere; cooked with it, cleaned with it, screen printed with it and baked with it.
So one day after baking, I came outside of the restaurant where I work to find that my car wouldn’t start. This happens sometimes. It was a boiling hot September day, and after a few unsuccessful attempts at jumping my car, I resigned myself to walking the four miles home. I walked past my boss and the new Farmer lady at the garden, the boss offered me a ride. I spent a few minutes helping them and we left.
Here’s where things get sticky (ha) (not funny actually). When I reached into my bag for my keys, I remembered that I’d stuck a tube of frosting in my bag before leaving, intending to place it immediately into the fridge. The mocha frosting had melted all. over. everything. I rushed my goop- covered laptop inside, opened it and set it on its side. Over the next 30 minutes about a 1/2 cup of frosting slowly drained out, eventually hardening as it adjusted to the cooler indoor temperature.
I made an appointment at the Apple store and only an hour later, I was walking inside, gingerly holding my poor laptop out in front of me.
It turns out that I knew about ten people who were working at the Apple store that day, and as each one greeted me their smiles turned into looks of horror as they took in my situation. In turn, each one shrugged and said “At least it smells good.” Finally, after hearing this from the tenth person, I commented ”Everyone’s been talking about the smell.” The employee thought for a minute, and said “Well, we usually get computers covered in cat urine or beer. It’s a nice change of pace.”
My Apple genius man took my laptop and soon returned, its internal workings exposed and covered in what looked like snot. He said, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do about it.” I felt faint- I hadn’t really considered the possibility of my computer actually dying! I thought it would slowly heal itself like always before! But then the nice Apple man continued, “Buuuuut, I see that you have Apple Care, and for this ONE TIME ONLY….we are going to give you a new machine.”
The next few minutes went basically like this:
me: “Whats the catch?”
Apple Genius: “No catch.”
me: “Are you sure there’s no catch?”
Apple Genius: “Nope. Apple is awesome.”
me: “You can say that again.”
All my friends at the store kept telling me, “Wow, they never do that.” ”I’ve never seen that before.” I am SO thankful I dodged that bullet. Eric would’ve killed me and even worse, made me get a cheap new computer- not a Mac. They put my old hard drive in the new machine, so when I opened my new laptop for the first time, it was exactly like my old friend, except younger, prettier and cleaner.
A few weeks later I brought a batch of cupcakes to the Apple store as a thank you, with a note “KEEP THIS FROSTING AWAY FROM THE COMPUTERS.”
Moral of the story, buy a mac.
Macbook Pro #2 and I had a good run, baking, printing and getting messy together. I even backed it up on an external hard drive, which I’m ashamed to say is pretty much a first for me. I felt a little guilt when I looked at the smudged keys and screen, but on the whole I kept it in its case when traveling.
This past week was Thanksgiving, and Eric and I flew to Detroit to visit his brother with the rest of his family. I really loved Detroit. It was very beautiful in its own way, and always something to look at. There’s a whole block where people have stapled stuffed animals and old shoes to houses. There are gorgeous and ornate skyscrapers sitting vacant downtown. And there is awesome food (Slows BBQ. Go there.)
One day, we went for a walk at a city park where it is legal to paint graffiti. It’s a long pathway with old bridge pylons covered in awesome writing and images. We played football and took pictures and had a great ol’ family time. So blissful, so naive….when we got back to the cars, we discovered that everything had been stolen out of Eric’s brother’s trunk. Eric and I thought we were going to a coffee shop to work later, so we’d packed our laptops and iPods. And then I had the great idea to put everything in the trunk to be safe. Turns out, they must’ve seen us transferring every valuable thing we own to the trunk, because the other car with us wasn’t broken into. Eric’s brother and sister lost stuff too. And I can’t help but think this is all my fault because the very night before I prayed that God would free us of our addictions to technology. That Guy pays attention for sure.
At first when we were sitting around making phone calls to cancel credit cards I played it cool, but then Eric listed “external hard drive” under the things stolen and then I was all like “WHAAAAAT? WHHYYYYY?” because that was where my computer was backed up. I cried a little bit while trying to get Eric to shoulder the blame while he lectured me on the importance of backing up in more than one place. We agreed later that I shouldn’t play the blame game and he should just nod and pet my head and say comforting things when I’m upset.
What’s more, my journal was in my bag so they got that too. I only hope they just throw it away and it goes straight to the landfill, and that nobody reads it or finds it and PLEASE don’t let anybody find it and use it for source material or just publish it straight up. I die thinking about it.
The silver linings are these:
1. When we got back to the house, Eric picked up our hard drive and said “Oh, here it is.” He’d forgotten to take it. THANK YOU GOD.
2. We payed the “hood tax” and now fit in Detroit.
3. Renter’s insurance (recommend it) will probably pay for most of the loss, so I am now typing on Macbook Pro #3. May it be the last for a very long time.
And thus, we left Thanksgiving in Detroit a little lighter, and a little heavier.
Anyway, prints of this guy are going to be up on Etsy very, very soon. I created him originally for Erin’s son George’s nursery, (which was gorgeously designed by her talented cousin Megan), but I’d love to share him with a few more people. I’ll be back in a few days with more pictures.
