Electric Feel

Black Betty was my baby.  When I first carefully took her home all strapped in and bundled up, I felt all the responsibilities of a grownup.  Feeding her cookies byte by byte, I scrolled through job boards and uploaded pictures from my phone onto a new awesome website called Myspace (which my friends predicted would soon make Friendster a thing of the past).  After 9 months of paying off my Best Buy Credit Card balance, she officially became the most expensive item I have ever purchased.  
 
Black Betty was my laptop, and after I was laid off, she went from being used 3 hours a day to 14.  For a computer that's like going from living in dog years to dragon fly months.  The wear and tear showed.  She was running slowly even after I deleted space consuming files and steered clear of NSFW sites (althought that dog pooping on a baby was pretty funny).  My wrists wore dull spots into the silver enamel below the keyboard.  Yet it was the crackle and pop of a sizzling motherboard that finally snapped me out of denial.  The end was near. 

I turned my back to Black Betty, getting a flash drive to transfer all my files into.  256MBs of storage in hand, I turned back around and watched as she prepared to hibernate only to never restart again.
 
Three and a half years of memories being lost was the least of my concerns.  A laptop is a necessity to the unemployed.  It is our mobile office and cheap line of mass communication to friends im'ing or g-chatting it up from their stationary cubicles.  Rather than throwing my cash away on Internet cafes when I am already paying for wireless in my apartment, I had a local Geek Squad confirm Black Betty's expiry and immediately went back to Abington to get a new laptop for less taxes.  In 18 interest free months of payments, she will be mine.
 
Unfortunately, this means that the other items on my wish list (a new bed, bike, month long Spanish/surfing immersion course in Costa Rica and tickets to baseball games) will all have to be put on hold.  Those are all things that I don't immediately need and can save hundreds on by seeking out coupons, sales, teacher discounts (via mom/Irene) and friends company seats.  Always check to see if you can get one of the above before making a costly purchase.  Times are tough and establishments are luring consumers in with incentives to buy things they otherwise wouldn't.  Feel free to use that saved money to stimulate the economy splurging on something else (like newly a reduced COBRA health plan).
 
With my old cluttered motherboard wiped clean I can start fresh all over again. I'm hoping to use my new laptop, which still remains nameless, to launch my new career as a tri-lingual writer/freelance reality television casting producer. 
 
Please take this opportunity to grab hold of a flash drive and save all the important information housed in your computer that you will never get back if it suffers an electrical implosion.  Don't make my mistake in the future.  Back it up now.