Wednesday, October 25, 2006

How was your day, sir?

Today I had to call the bank to ask about a transaction I made a few days ago that hasn't showed up on my statement yet. While waiting for the transaction history to load, the guy asked me how my day was.

What I wanted to say:
Long. I was woken against my will at 9,25 by my sister, who wanted to print something on my printer so that she could read it on the bus. She left it too late, however, so the time it took for the computer to turn on and log onto the network was too much and she would have missed the bus if she waited, so she left without the printouts. So I was woken early for nothing. The reason that she had to wake me up to use my printer is because the other printer - also on the network - wasn't connected because it's computer was dead and in pieces on the loungeroom floor. Furthermore, my mother threatened me with bodily violence if the mess wasn't cleaned up by this evening. The computer was, as I said, in pieces on the loungeroom floor because despite a new motherboard, hard-drive, processor, and RAM, it still didn't work. I was confident that I had done everything right but still there was nothing doing so I wasn't quite so sure. I was about to call the computer doctor but I decided to give it another go just in case the little fucker decided to make a liar out of me. The first try yielded the same results - zippo. I lay down on the floor next to the tower - splayed for my viewing convenience - and had another look at all the connections. I thought it might be worth removing the internal modem since it was the only original piece of hardware left in the computer. In my early-morning haze I unplugged the wrong cable instead of the power cable, meaning that when I removed the modem and checked all the connections the computer was still live with 240v coursing through it's veins. Luckily I wasn't shocked and electrocuted. After removing the internal modem I tried to boot it up again with baited breath. It worked. I then spent the rest of the day installing windows, office, norton, and various other software packages. Then I had to reconfigure the network: the new computer (whom I named Greer - after Greer Garson, one of my favourite actresses of all time), the two laptops, the two printers (one of whom I named Mrs Miniver, after one of my favourite movies of all times), and finally the broadband connection. While installing software I was chatting with friends online. Once this was done and the 5GB of personal files were transferred I went to town with my dad to go to the post office and the bank, it was at the ATM that I realised that the transaction I'm calling about hasn't gone through yet. Then we went home, stopping at my friend's grandmother's to pick up her newspaper, since she is on holidays, and then picked up milk and beer from the liquor store. When I got home I showed mum the new computer setup and gave her a tutorial in "Web surfing 101" after which I made a few phone calls and cleaned up the remaining mess on the loungeroom floor so as to avoid my untimely death at my mother's hand. I then picked up the phone, dialed the number of the bank to ask about this transaction and was put through to you. You asked my name (for security purposes) and I explained the problem. While waiting, you asked me how my day has been, and I answered you.

What I actually said:
Long. Good, but long.

4 comments ... click here to comment:

firstimpre55ion said...

Ah so that's what you were up to...I wondered where you were all evening/arvo...Well glad to hear the computer is back up and running...Love hate relationship with technology right? Your tale tugged on my heart strings...I feel for you when being awoken violently and computers don't work the way you want it to when you need it to..quite a pain in the buttocks...but all good now right? Hope the rest of your evening was better than that rubbish! :D

Drew said...

Excellent job with the computer. After what you had already tried I'm pretty sure I would have gone Office Space on the damn thing.

Ryan said...

omg i wouldnt have time with a puter i tried once i lost it and the puter went flyin out the window!

Liz said...

That's like the Lano and Woodley song! :)