You know what really frosts my flakes? Buying a new computer.
My trusty machine works perfectly right up until about three months after the warranty expires. It acts like it’s got a calendar and a bad attitude.
So off to the store I go. Rows and rows of shiny machines all lit up like they’re auditioning for a spaceship.
But try to find basic information? Processor? RAM? Storage? Good luck. That information is buried deeper than treasure in a pirate movie. You need a decoder ring and a teenager to figure out what you’re looking at.
Which means you can’t just browse like a normal human being. No, you need a salesperson.
And this poor kid is not explaining anything. He’s just reading numbers off a box like he’s calling bingo night at the retirement home.
So, you sit down and try one out and, wouldn’t you know it, it’s lightning fast. Everything opens instantly and switches between programs like it’s reading your mind.
You’re thinking, this is it. This beauty will last me the rest of my natural life. So, you slap down your credit card ready to take it home.
But, then they say, “Oh, you can’t take it with you today.”
Excuse me? No, no. They need to run “checks,” for my protection, of course.
That must be when they take it in the back room and load it up with every piece of junk software ever created.
Programs you didn’t ask for. Programs you don’t need. Programs that pop up every 10 minutes asking if you’d like to upgrade to the premium version of something you didn’t want in the first place.
But, you don’t even know about that yet. Because the moment you get home and turn it on, it needs updates. Not just one update. Not even five. Like three hundred and ninety.
What ran like a gazelle in the store now moves like it’s pulling a piano uphill.
And every single thing wants you to register. The operating system. The browser. The antivirus. The photo viewer.
Even the calculator wants your email address.
You’re told to create an account. Verify your identity and agree to these terms written in a font so small you need another computer just to read them.
So you click “agree” like the rest of us because what are you gonna do, hire a lawyer to review 47 pages so you can check your email?
Then, just when you finally get everything set up, two weeks later — BAM — a major update is required.
Suddenly your brand-new computer, the one that felt like a rocket ship in the store, is now crawling along like it’s stuck in a snowstorm somewhere in Wisconsin.
All that money. All that hassle. And somehow you wound up buying a slower computer than the one that just died.
I’m Grandpa Grumpy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got 12 notifications telling me I need to restart. Again.
I didn’t buy a computer. I adopted a high-maintenance electronic pet.