The Best Laptop Ever (In Memoriam)




Me and Steve during happier times.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter or like me on Facebook, you were expecting the first in a series of blog posts about that marriage book the anonymous commenter told me to read.

Of course, if you follow me, then you also know tragedy struck this weekend. My laptop, Steve (he also liked to be called Magic Mac) died.

Did you all know I called my laptop Steve?

I give a lot of inanimate things names, however I don’t really use them. But when I was working from home for the year, I often spoke to (and of) my co-worker Steve.


Steve and I were working on a press release Saturday night (I know, I make being single look so glamorous) when suddenly, he just went black. He’s done this sort of thing before, so I restarted him and waited, cursing him under my breath.

It pains me to think that the last words he ever heard me say were, “Not now, Steve.”

After several failed restart attempts, I made an appointment with a genius at Apple and then drank an entire bottle of red wine: mostly medicinal since my anxiety for Steve may have kept me from sleeping.

The next morning the genius (and really, that’s a stretch) informed me that (1) my computer is old, (b) the video chip probably failed and (iii) they can’t replace it because they no longer make it (“We don’t want to encourage people to put that kind of money into such an old computer.”), and in conclusion I can take it to a third party, get the hard drive removed and then use that as an external drive because he was pretty positive the hard drive was still intact.

One last gift from my favorite co-worker.

After realizing I hadn't lost eight years of my work (I think its backed up, but who knows), so there was no cause for serious alarm, the sadness set in.

As well as an irrational anger every time one of these barely post-pubescents called my computer old.

We were going over the paper work for leaving my computer for servicing when the third-party guy said “VIN just stands for vintage, which is the label they give because your computer is so old.”

“You know, when they label a Chanel clutch vintage, it means it’s more valuable.”

He stared back at me blankly for a minute and then responded. “It could be worse, it could be labeled obsolete. Those computers can’t even get on the Internet.”

What do you think the odds are this kid has “vintage” t-shirts or video games back at his apartment? The t-shirts from television shows he's never watched but spent $50 each on at Urban Outfitters are cool, but my vintage computer was something to disdain.

Was I being ridiculous. Absolutely. But Steve and I had a lot of history. We watched the first season of LOST together. We drafted countless query letters and columns and blogs and press releases together. We emailed friends and foes, stalked celebrities and exes and exes new girlfriends. We wrote a novel together. And sure most people don’t develop emotional bonds with their laptops, but most people are comfortable having feelings for other people. I prefer to reserve my feelings for computers. They are more reliable.

Well, until they’re not.