Internet Glitches

My father did not enjoy getting his hands dirty. He did not enjoy tinkering. He repelled household puttering. He hired an electrician to do the electrical work, a plumber to do the plumbing, and a landscaper to tend the yard. He did not waste Saturday afternoons washing his cars or giving them an oil change. He did not know which end of a spark plug was which. He believed that that was the point of being a well-educated man with a more than decent salary—hiring people to do that sort of labor.

My father believed professional things were best left to professionals—not amateurs. It’s how I was raised. Which is why there are lots of things either I do not know or care to know about---like troubleshooting computers. My computer is like my car---I start it up everyday and expect it to work. And if it doesn’t, I must find someone who can fix it. And in the case of the computer, other than restarting it, pulling the plug, or clicking elementary things, if error messages come up, I am in deep trouble.

For nearly a year I have been writing this blog. I set it up myself, mostly because it was not difficult to do. And every day I go to my website, sign in with a password, and I then have access to all the things I need to maintain it—like posting and editing and viewing statistics. It’s been easy. The only annoyance is that I cannot sign on to my blog from my aol account—I use internet explorer instead. I guessed that there was some control nonsense in aol that rendered the sign in process void.

But last Thursday I could not get into my blog even through internet explorer. And the worst part was because I couldn’t get to my account, I couldn’t get to the site that would allow me to troubleshoot it. So I kept changing my password thinking (with paranoia) that some person in Ghana was hacking into my blog account (because all hackers come from Ghana and want to steal my words). 

And for some inexplicable reason, the 3^rd password change allowed me in—but I still needed to refresh way too often and I still was getting this bX-74br-4 error intermittently—which even when I googled it gave me no information as to what bX-74br-4 error meant.

And this morning I was closed out again. And all the unplugging and elementary clicking did nothing. So I went on my laptop to see if maybe it was just my desktop computer. Indeed that seemingly was the case. The laptop let me in. Something about my desktop was causing the internet miscommunication.

I tried to think about what the difference could be from my desktop versus the laptop. Then I thought hmm the laptop uses Mozilla as its browser---maybe it’s the browser. And then I went back to my computer and I remembered how Blogger is run by Google---and Google owns Google Chrome and I thought that maybe Google was conspiring against me. I remembered how Google chrome kept inviting me to their party despite my refusal. Maybe my Google blogger wanted me to use Google Chrome just like my Mazda wants me to use genuine Mazda parts. Maybe Google was bullying me into abandoning my devotion to internet explorer. So I downloaded Google Chrome and poof not only could I get into my blog without a thought, the speed was greatly enhanced.

Problem solved. So just when I was about to ask my friend Kathleen if her son could help me, I figured it out on my own—but an eternity had elapsed---and I was still annoyed.

And just like I employ AAA in case I get a flat tire I want a tech guy at my beck and call too. And I want him there in minutes like the AAA guy. I want to point and click on the computer fixer man and instantly have the problem solved.That way the next time my mother’s printer isn’t working and my “fixing” screws it up even worse than before it was broken, I won’t feel like a loser or have to wait until my husband finds time in his work schedule to remedy my mistake. I want to leave professional things to the professionals—just like my father did.