After the second day of trying to make something predictable happen on my computer, I finally lost it.  It’s partly the fault of Windows 8, which rhymes with “hate” for some ironic reason. And, of course, it’s undoubtedly my fault too because I am an idiot who now needs a vacation in a computer-less world for at least a month. Help me.

It started with our voice over internet (VOIP) home phone having no dial tone.  It progressed to my email account being unable to send messages.  From there it warped into hours long conversations with the internet provider who was supposed to give more information about the problem. That didn’t happen. At one point I actually asked John (not his real name I’m thinking) if he was in India.

“Yes, how did you know?” he queried.

” I’m not deaf, and everyone in the background is speaking something other than English.  I can hear them.”

After multiple times on  hold, John could not solve my problem but he said I would get a call from someone who could within 24 hours.  He ended by asking me if I was happy with their service.  Really?  Deep breath…

” I will be happy when the problem is solved and I have my home phone service back again. But I realize that you did the best you could and I’m not unhappy with you personally.”

The next morning I was trying to live chat with my email provider support team.  Janet (not her real name I’m thinking) was careful to authenticate my account.  In fact, they all were very careful to do this, maybe at the beginning of the conversation but also maybe near the end. Oooops.  It gave me a good chance to review the husband’s father’s middle name and the last four digits of every credit card I own.  Unfortunately, Janet just disappeared after asking me if I wanted to give her remote access to my computer.

It was then that the 24 hour expert called back about my VOIP problem.  His name was James and I think he was telling the truth.  He sounded like a James.  We talked until he determined I needed a new piece of equipment, which he was going to program to my number and have me call it to test.  Meanwhile he wanted to solve my email problem as well.  How nice.

His solution was for me to download another email program which he personally liked and assured me was the best and only one to have.  Let’s see… I have Windows Mail (yuk), Earthlink webmail, and Outlook Mail and he thinks I need to have Mozilla Thunderbird.  As I said, I am at idiot stage and I thought nothing of putting on a fourth email handler. Like, why not? An hour later he called and said the piece of equipment he was programming for me was just not solving the problem because of some “backroom” issues.  What is a backroom issue?  The people who were going to handle this problem would get back to me whenever they got to it.  I was not first on their list.  Okay.

This was how my two and a half “days off” were consumed.  John, Janet and James, my new friends.  I went to work with a real bad headache.

This morning I needed to email someone.  I went to my new mail account with the fabulous Thunderbird, and of course the first thing I needed was the address, for the To: box.  Only I had no addresses in Thunderbird.  Seriously, there should just be a button called Address Book that I could click on and drag where I wanted it, right? I worked, I googled, I cried.  I think the husband was getting a little worried.  He finally told me to call Eddie.

Eddie is my new BEST friend.  He runs a computing business and is a very compassionate person who doesn’t mind a bit of sobbing and whining.  He has a link on the first page of his website that people like me can click to give him remote access and then sit back and watch our problems go away.  It was beautiful.  Strangely, Eddie thinks I am computer literate, ha ha ha ha,

This is the first thing I’ve tried to do on the computer since it was cleaned, defragged and had it’s “foundation”, as Eddie calls it, shored up.  All the nasty viruses and cookies and temp files have been evicted.  I have a desktop with words not pictures, nothing rhymes with wait, bait or gate, although I’m told it’s still under there somewhere.  Now, I’m hopefully going to go send an email, or check into a mental institution. One or the other, just sayin’…

.