When people talk to me, I'm often described as quiet, calm, sometimes even meek. Stick me in front of any sort of technology, however, and I go completely and utterly ballistic. There have been many times when I've had to buy a new keyboard for my old computer at home, simply because I couldn't deal with the fact that it didn't work how I wanted it to work.

Open porn in Quicktime, will you?
Off with the J key!

Outdated Winamp keeps freezing, eh?
Mashing that enter key with a soft hammer will fix that.

School's internet stops working for no apparent reason?
Start it up again by punching those useless insert, home, page up, and page down keys until they pop off.


This is why I am no longer able to write on eBaumsworld as much as I'd like to anymore. For you see, my hard drive has exploded. Well, it didn't so much 'explode' as it did 'overheatfrommeleavingitonformonthsatatime'. But either way, my hard drive is now fried. It happened like this:

I was sitting at my computer, peacefully staring at the pictures on www.bookwormbitches.com, when I suddenly came up with the bright idea to write another article. "It will be the humor story of the century!" My brain told me. "One that will showcase your unceasing wit in a triumphant return! All that work in school has really paid off!"

Hmmmm.... but what could I write about?

After beating off a few more times to some more bespectacled babes, I finally found the perfect title:


"You Know You're Straight-Edge When You Throw Up At A Root Beer Kegger"


Ah yes, this story would be yet another charming tale about the laughable failure that is my life.... but wait? Why has my iTunes stopped playing? Why is my mouse no longer working? What's with this blue screen of death??


WINDOWS ERROR #3.141592654
BEGINNING PHYSICAL MEMORY DUMP


What.... the...... fuck?

The rage began to build in the backs of my eyes, and slowly made its way down to my throat. A deep growl erupted, and I began to see red. My fists clenched and unclenched, and I knew that the smashing would begin shortly.

But wait, I must calm myself. This was something that could be easily remedied by simply restarting! Silly me, my literary masterpiece would surely be done in no time. I held down the power button for a few seconds, and watched the screen go black. I gave a slightly exasperated sigh, and waited a few moments.


I wonder what color a smurf would turn if you choked it?
Do Roman surgeons refer to IV's as 4's?
Is a boulder just a statue of a rock?
Why is it that when men talk dirty to women it's sexual harassment, but when a woman talks dirty to a man it's $3.95 per minute?


Questions plagued my mind in the deafening silence, and I had the sudden urge to turn my computer back on. Ahhh, blissful mind-numbing goodness was soon to be mine. The ever familiar load screen popped up, and then the login screen came in.

Username: Matt
Password: ********


Loading..... loading...... loading......

What rhymes with 'silver'?

Loading...... loading...... BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH


My hands began to tingle. Almost out of instinct, my right hand removed itself from my pants, balled itself up into a fist, and smashed the shit out of my keyboard. Keys flew everywhere and stung my face in retaliation. Stupid me. Stupid stupid stupid. I should've known better..... my fiancee was asleep. A noise like that would surely wake her.

I immediately unplugged my laptop and left the room, taking in the satisfying crunch of my Shift, backslash, semicolon, and Ctrl keys as I stepped on each one of them for good measure.

I quietly brought the quivering laptop into the hallway and shut the door behind me.

"Alrighty, you miserable piece of fucking Godforsaken shit. I swear, on all that is holy, if you don't fucking start to work, I'm going to end you." I menaced.

Verbal threats always do the trick. How could a computer dare to defy me after such words? A loud vibration emanated from deep within my computer, to which I responded with my flying dragon kick.

"DON'T SASS ME, MOTHERFUCKER!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO!!" I bellowed.

I slammed my fist down upon the power button and held it. The computer clicked off and I began to pace in front of it.

"I give, and I give, and what do I get? I mean, GOD!! Every time you asked me for just one more cookie, I gave it to you! And now you just take a dump on my desk!? I expect changes, mister." I rasped.

The computer groaned as I hit the power button again. The LCD screen came to life, and the loading screen came on. I was expecting only what I was familiar with. I was expecting my beloved laptop to spring to life in shades of blues and greens. But nay, instead, I was greeted with an unfamiliar black screen with only two simple words:

"HDD Password:"


I stared blankly back at my laptop. I typed in my usual password. Nothing. I sat back, a cold sweat breaking out over me. For the first time in my life, I was bested by a machine. In order for me to make it work, I had to say the magic word. Cheeky bastard.

"idontknow" I typed.


And that's when it died.


It just STOPPED WORKING. I couldn't take it. Gripping the top of the screen, I took my two-year old laptop and chucked it across the hallway, and listened to the glorious sounds of it shattering into thousands of tiny pieces as it slammed into the wall. But it wasn't enough. I had to pulverize it. I had to completely eliminate anything that even resembled a part of a computer. I had to punish this abomination for making my life so needlessly complicated.

It had to pay.


And that's when my neighbor stepped out, seeing some crazy sleep-deprived loser hurling chunks of Godknowswhat against a wall, screaming like woman, and laughing like Count Chocula. I'm sure words fail to describe what he might have seen. His confusion was apparent after he asked:

"Matt, what the fuck are you doing?"

I stared back at him with the same excitement a cow has when it sees an oncoming train.

"Hard drive stopped working. Don't worry, I'll clean this up." I stated.
"But.... didn't you know hard drives can be easily replaced?"

My stomach sank.

"Whuuh?"
"Yeah. The old one slides right out, and the new one can slide right in, you fucking moron. Now you're gonna have to buy a whole new computer."

And with that, my neighbor left me standing alone, at 4:30 AM, in a hallway filled with pieces of what was once my laptop.



Somehow, somewhere, I could hear the laughter of pine trees.