Handshake Drugs

I’ve been suffering through a rash of existential angst lately:  two weeks ago, my laptop crashed.

Now, this wasn’t nearly as awful as it could’ve been -- everything was successfully backed up, and I was wise enough, as my laptop neared its first birthday about a year ago, to buy the extended warranty package from Apple, so the repairs were covered.  But those unguents are no antidote for the disorientation of laptop loss.

After the third crash -- fortunately or unfortunately, it wasn’t one final death, but rather an infuriating series of them, like a car teasing you repeatedly with the sound of life before sputtering into silence -- I called AppleCare for a diagnosis.  Based on my description of the problem, the friendly fellow with the Canadian accent who took my call surmised that I was experiencing a “kernel panic.”  That sounded like I felt, but made things no clearer.

“In your computer,” he explained, “you have hardware and software.”  I was with him.  “The kernel is the handshake that lets them work together.  When you have a kernel panic, there’s a breakdown in the handshake.”

Okay, I said.  Conceptually, I think I get that.  But what’s all this bad handshaking mean to me?

It meant a trip to CompUSA, my closest Apple Authorized Service Provider.  They’d take a look-see, and if they could fix it, they’d fix it.  If not, they’d have to ship it to Apple.

Canada was optimistic, but my stomach saw where all this was leading:  Cupertino.

The tech behind the desk at CompUSA was Kevin, a squirrelly, affable nerd who typed in my contact info and had me sign a contract.  I felt I was in good hands.  When it comes to my computer, the unabashed geeks always make me feel that way.

But less than 24 hours later, CompUSA called:  my machine was on its way back to its maker.

Reality set in -- I was going to be Macless for a while.

Here again, this could have been much worse; I could’ve been cut off from civilization entirely, forced to use ancient technologies like the telephone for communication and the TV for entertainment, had I not still been hanging on to the PC that preceded the iBook as my primary computer.

I went back to a laptop because my brief desktop dalliance had shown me the foolishness of shackling my wanderlust to a desk; I went Mac because I’d grown weary of my PC’s constant crashing, plus, so many of my Mac-minded mates raved about the things that I figured, What’s another cult among friends?

When my iBook first arrived, I felt like I had moved to a new apartment in a new city.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know exactly where to do it, and I lacked familiarity with the local customs.  Everything I needed was somewhere else from where it used to be, and suddenly my kitchen was filled with fancy appliances I’d never seen before.  It was all pretty and shiny and new, but it didn’t quite feel like home.

After a while -- and after several maddening wrong turns that ultimately helped me better navigate the new terrain -- it did feel like home.  I finally understood why everyone raved about the place; once you finally got acclimated, everything seemed easier, cooler, and more intuitive there.  They didn’t shut off the lights for no reason at random points during the day.

So when I was temporarily evicted from my new digs, which by then felt like old digs, I not only couldn’t check my fantasy football scores from the couch while I watched the games; I had to go back to my abandoned apartment in my old neighborhood:  Windowsland.

Knowing this move wasn’t permanent, I didn’t get too comfortable.  I lived out of a suitcase, in this case my flash drive, never wanting to commit to the permanence of the hard drive, partly because I’d been burned by it so many times in the past, and partly, I think, because I wanted to convince myself I wouldn’t be staying long.

I found everything in my old place just as I’d left it, and while the surroundings were familiar, the more time I spent there, the more I realized how much I’d changed since I’d left.  It wasn’t just that I’d moved on to a nicer, more mobile apartment -- I’d made new friends and hung out at new places; I’d discovered new power tools and arranged my files in a completely different hierarchy.  I felt like a strange houseguest, living with the less-evolved me I used to be -- and even more depressingly, living with webmail.

So you can imagine my delight when the call came from CompUSA:  my laptop was back, new motherboard in tow.  I was ready to go home.

When I got there, eager to ease back into my old new habits, I discovered that all was not as I’d left it (besides the new motherboard, and the hard drive being wiped clean):  there was a three-inch scratch along the bottom of the screen.

More existential angst:  I could live with a scratch on the screen, but was that wise?  Moreover, could I live without my laptop for however long it would take to ship it back to Apple, and to have them ship it back to me?

The kind AppleCare woman I spoke with must have had some training in crisis counseling; she not only felt my pain, she understood it.  She would send me a box, she said softly, and if I was ready to send the computer back when it came, I could, but if I needed a few more days with the laptop before letting go again, that was all right, too.  She assured me that they would do everything in their power to get my iBook back to me as soon as possible -- the box would even be there the next day.

And it was.  Perhaps entranced by the ingenious design of the padding packed inside, I decided I’d been living this long out of a suitcase; I could make it another week.

So now I wait.  Again.  But frustrating as this experience has been -- “I thought this stuff wasn’t supposed to happen with Macs,” I cried to my Mac mentor what feels like years ago -- my time at the old apartment reminded me of why I left in the first place, and confirmed that the truism is, well, true.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.