Don’t Bite The Hand That Fixes Your Computer

So, Your Computer Broke Down!

by Asta Dido

 I have written a series of stories that might inform and amuse you. Many are all about computers in one way or another; sorry to say that all are true and might leave you shaking your head in disbelief, but that’s what we writers do. Here is one of the first. I call it:

Don’t Bite The Hand That Fixes Your Computer

 

In my building lived a woman named Gilda Napolitano. Gilda’s husband, Irving, had died and the arrangement for his passing must have been easy because he had been a Funeral Director. I guess even Funeral Directors die although that’s the first I ever heard of one going with those expensive caskets to that big parlor in the sky! I always thought them to be immortal. Anyway , that’s a tough way to get a trade discount.

 Gilda was alone and lonely and family never visited-- really? But, her middle aged daughter bought her a computer to keep her company and, out of necessity Gilda learned how to use it to email and learned how to cast a desperate line out for a husband on hundreds of web pages using a very little known photograph of Marylyn Monroe. Oh boy, and did the offers pour in until her computer broke down— I suspect not enough memory for this kinda lie. So, the very day, no, the very moment her computer went down, Gilda came knocking on my door knowing that I’m a retired computer teacher and hobbyist and have helped many in my building with their PC’s  for free—hey, happy to help a neighbor in need! “A freebee!” What luck! Funny how that kinda news spreads so quickly.

 Well, I went to Gilda’s apartment found the problem in her dream machine repaired it and left—“no sweat” as we used to say in the Air Force where the first computer I ever worked on was as big as a two story building and had less computing power than my iPod and was used to target  cities to be A- bombed—nice huh!

 Back to Gilda where I never heard words like “thank you,” danker, gratzia and tah; maybe she never learned them, although, she later did knock on my door and give me half a box of spoiled struddle she had in her freezer for half a century. What generous soul I thought but, I accepted it without a word and they flew right out of my hands like magic into that thing in the sink that goes “woosh”—better the sink get sick than me!

 A few days later I saw Gilda in the hallway and asked her how her computer was and she said fine but, that she told me she spoke to her daughter, the unmarried Systems Analyst, on the phone and she said her daughter told her I didn’t know what I was doing.

 I was stunned and my macro-processor of a mind just couldn’t digest the nonsense called information it was receiving. WHAT? I fixed your computer, it’s working fine and your daughter, the one that never visits you, the Systems Analyst, tells you on the phone a few light years away that the nice man that repaired your computer for free didn’t know what he was doing? Sorry, I just don’t understand people like that or, maybe I do; feeling guilt at not helping or ever visiting her Mama—do ya think!

 “Gilda”, said I, “the next time your computer breaks down don’t call me,  call your daughter the big Systems Analyst and have her come and fix it!” That must have gone over her head because as poetic justice has it, her computer, the cheapest money could buy, did break down again shortly; weeks later.

 Now I know, with absolute certainty, that people like her are never ashamed—they will have the nerve to ask me to fix it again. Knowing that people like her are never embarrassed is why I put in, and used, what I call the “ you cheap jerk” clause which is and was said: “I’ll have to charge you for the repair” and, surprise, surprise, I was never bothered again! I saw the computer in the trash one day and I left it there to join her deceased husband, Irving. Maybe he’ll have better luck with it…

 

C’est la vie (I’ll bet you saw that coming LoL).

 

Hey, you can’t make this kinda stuff up(except for the person's name). So,  as I always say, remember if you can’t laugh at yourself, others’ will!!!           

Asta Dido

PS, In time, everything in Nature will be "recycled" --think about it!!!

 

Asta Dido is the Pen Name of Sam DiBernardo, Candidate for NY City Council, Dist. 32 Queens, NY