Nothing to See Here…

Remember?  Anyone?  I think it was 1995 when US Robotics first launched the Palm Pilot.  Yeah, cell phones were just going mass-market then.  Do you recall?

Here we are more than a decade later, and I just got my first one.  Palm, that is.  My 13th year wedding anniversary was yesterday and evidently 13 is the “complicated electronics” year (and for the past 12 years, he’s had me believing it was leather every flippin’ year!)

I’m no luddite, y’all.  I’m NOT.  I had my first computer while most of you people were still in nappies.  I was 20 years old.  It was 1985 then and the IBM PC was just taking off.  I worked at a computer slum. (Remind me to tell you all about it… some days my boss would say “Lin, go flush the toilet - I forgot to flush the toilet.” and I’d tell myself that I was paid by the hour and some people had it way worse than flushing the toilet for their boss.  But I digress…)

Anyway, when I brought my first ‘loaner’ computer home, I didn’t know what to do.  I turned it on and there sat that damn blinking c:\ prompt.  I typed hello and I typed help and whatever else I could think of.  Damn thing just sat there and nothing happened. 

After giving oral sex to some of the technicians buying a manual, I was on my way, though.  Before long, I was writing batch routines and editing my config sys file and I was a command prompt guru.  I learned all I could about that damn thing.  I did my own repairs and upgrades.  I knew that motherfucker inside and out.

I was a smokin’ hot tech-chick.  The guys dug it.  OK, well, maybe I wasn’t that smokin’ hot but I knew computers and people were impressed. 

Then I met my husband, mister propeller-head, my very own technical support department.  And he took over all technical functions of the JustLinda household.  He did upgrades and repairs.  He networked everything including the toaster.  HE STOLE MY TECHNICAL MOJO!

We’ve been together for 14 years and I haven’t been a hands-on smokin’ hot tech-chick in all that time.  I’ve allowed him to take over the role.  (He is, for the record, a smokin’ hot tech-dude, though, and I find technoweenies very, very sexy… it’s the smart ones that get me lusting after them…) 

When the Palm Pilots came out, I wanted no part of them.  Hell, I held off until 2000 in getting a damn cell phone.  And even though I have one, I never have it when I need it.  It’s in the bottom of my purse and I never hear it ring, so no one can get hold of me.  And when I leave, I often forget it in the cradle.  A few weeks ago when I murdered my minivan, I had no cell phone to call Triple-A (or my lawyer or my husband or anyone.)  I’m not a very good cell phone owner.

Yesterday, on our 13th anniversary, my husband (who was not supposed to get me a present but did anyway, breaking all the rules) handed over a gift that turned out to be a Palm model XZ400-99OLA (I just made that model number up ’cause I’m too lazy to go look and see the real model.)

He’s configured it all and it’s ready to go.

So, will I use it?  Why have I resisted all these years?  Me, the former smokin’ hot somewhat attractive tech-chick?

It was awfully sensitive of him to buy it for me.  He heard me say “I always think of GREAT blog ideas while driving to work or in the shower and then I forget them when I’m at my computer.”  So the Palm is meant to be a place to take a quick note (in the shower? while driving to work?) so I don’t forget. 

We’ll see how this thing works out.  If my blogging gets better, you can thank him.  If I’m boring the hell out of you writing about belly button lint (because? I made a quick note on my Palm so I wouldn’t forget! “Don’t forget to blog about the belly button lint!”) then you can let us know that, too.  Who knows, in 3 months there may be a spankin’ new color Palm Model YM4799-123 on Ebay for sale!  Cheap!  And some slutty stiletto heels - never worn!  Size 10! 

OK, fine - I’m a fucking luddite.  But back in the late 80s, at least in my own mind, I was a smokin’ hot tech chick.  You can’t take that away from me!