Yesterday my laptop died, just as I was finishing up a blog post. The laptop, a Dell 1420 purchased in 2007, was supposed to be the instrument by which a certain individual would write a well-received novel. It is survived by a balky iPhone 4s and an annoyed owner who has decided to look further than Dell for his next computer. No services are planned.
Five years? Really? Shouldn’t a $1,200 computer last at least seven years? Shouldn’t it have written a better book than the one it did? Stupid computer! Now I’ll have to buy a new machine or muddle along with a borrowed one. Otherwise, the site goes dark for a few days and my position as unpaid blogger emeritus gets very precarious. Can’t have that.
It’s a cruel world. Shiny gadgets get old quick, and then they break your heart. I prefer dogs. They don’t last all that long either, but at least they’re sincere. Here’s Mom’s old dog Patch, for whom I have a deep affection. Maybe because I think the feeling is mutual. His ears are a little askew because of a run-in with a pickup years ago, but Patch doesn’t let it get him down.

Patch is sympathetic to my loss.
Condolences on your loss. It is criminal the way nothing you buy lasts the way things used to. If I had paid that much and it died that soon, I’d be really mad!
Our first computer was a hand-me-down Windows 98 from my husband’s sister. It was already past any free tech support and couldn’t handle Adobe well, and it really had problems before we gave in and bought a new one a couple of years ago. But it didn’t die, either. We were still muddling along with it and googling and learning the day we switched over. My brother-in-law took it home for his kids to play old computer games on. It’s still good for SOMETHING.