he promised: for better or for worse

It appears that I have significantly maimed our Macintosh home computer. For the past several weeks, I've been getting these pesky messages whenever I tried to upload pictures. A note would flash up, "Insufficient space on hard drive" something or other.

So, I'd have to delete a file or two, clear off my desktop and empty the recycle bin. And maybe if I was lucky, the computer would cooperate and my photo upload would complete. I mentioned this "issue", several times to my husband, but in reality, we both hoped that maybe it would resolve itself. Perhaps one day, when we woke up and the sun was shining and there was peace on earth and all the problems of the world were solved, there would also, miraculously, be more space on my hard drive that would not require me taking a chunk of time out of my day and retreating to the Mac store for technical support and supplies.

Look computer, I'm busy. I've got a husband and four children and a job and Girl Scouts and I just need for you to work flawlessly ALL THE TIME. I seriously don't have time for your "malfunctions." I've got enough "malfunctions" of my own.

Do you hear me, "CHECK ENGINE" light in the truck that has been flashing for the past week?

So yesterday, in the quest to free up a LARGE QUANTITY of space, I went in to my hard drive and grabbed a file that read "Private." I couldn't recall ever storing such a ubiquitous file on my computer, so I opened it - quickly scrolled through it - saw nothing that I'd consider "PRIVATE" (i.e., my before pictures from P90X), so dumped the whole file in the trash.

And then, this is the brilliant part, I emptied the trash.

Instantly, my computer had a tantrum. The screen went white and it stopped working. I let out a groan and as luck would have it, Charlie - my technically competent husband who actually takes the time to turn a computer off properly (and doesn't just mash the power button until it goes black) was in the room and saw the whiteness on the monitor and immediately recognized something bad was afoot.

"Oh NO. Jen. What. Did. You. Just. Do?"

Excuse me?!

What did *I* just do?!

How could he possibly blame me? I've been complaining about this issue for a couple of weeks now. If he doesn't step in and fix the issue, I cannot be held responsible when things go disastrously wrong. Of course, he says the same thing to me whenever he tries to style the girls' hair for school...

Long story short, I did something that apparently was very, very bad. The worse possible thing you could do to a computer, short of tying it to an anvil and dropping it in the ocean.

So that is why today, Charlie took the computer to the Mac store. But because he wasn't able to line up an appointment until AFTER the children were home from school, he brought all four of them with him. To the appointment. At the Mac store. Where there are very expensive electronics. And where he had to work with a "Genius" for TWO HOURS.



According to Charlie, the novelty wore off for the children after approximately 10 minutes. So for 110 minutes, he was doing everything in his power to keep the children entertained.

Apparently, all the kids were "playing" with the new 4G phones and at least three of the kids were doing OK. Except for Henry, who Charlie had lined up with some kind of flying dinosaur game.

The object was that you had to press buttons and dart around eating leaves. But Henry doesn't understand the concept of "game" on a phone, so he just held it and watched it like a movie and because he wasn't "flying around" his dinosaur kept crashing. The game would end 10 seconds after it started, so he'd ask Charlie, "Dad. Do it again!"

Over and over and over. And over.

Times the number of 10 second intervals that fill a 110-minute span.

While this was painful for my husband, he said it was less painful than the alternative which would have been Henry running up and down the aisles with his arms outstretched.

Meanwhile, the computer technician was doing a very good job and taking his time. But because he was taking his time, he was going incredibly slow. Charlie said although he appeared composed on the outside, in the inside, he was grabbing his hair in his hands and screaming, "JUST FIX IT, ALREADY! WORK YOUR MAGIC AND FIX THIS THING!! CAN'T YOU SEE I HAVE FOUR KIDS IN HERE!!"

There just aren't enough words in the English language to capture the love that I have for my husband. Nor, the extreme gratitude I feel that it was him ... and not me, in that store, today.