Computer Guru

I wish I had realized what was going on before I called Mike’s Computer Repair.  The symptoms were maddening and were clotting up my life bigtime.  Every time I tried to write an email, the keys on my computer went wonky.  I’d be typing along and suddenly the letters simply wouldn’t show on the screen; a few eons later, they’d appear – sometimes what I’d typed; sometimes total gobbledygook.  For instance, when I hit the tab, nothing; four or five beats later it moved to the right as the letters “9Os7R” appeared.  Wotthehell?

Only in my email program.  Or did it happen when I was trying to write something in the Google search box?  Now I can’t remember… Whatever was happening was inconsistent, unpredictable and, usually it seemed to me, when I was in a hurry to get on with whatever it was.  When I finally put in my call for help and Zachary at Mike’s came to my rescue, it had been going on for days and days – maybe a week.

Mrs. Crouch’s Typewriter

Zachary was able to solve the problem remotely – by magic, if you ask me.  He wasn’t able to pinpoint what was going on – we couldn’t even replicate it and I felt vaguely like I’d been lying or, perhaps living in a parallel universe.  But, praise the gods, it’s fixed!  At least for now.

This morning I awoke to the thought that it must have been Mrs. Crouch, our resident ghost.  (If you don’t know of her, I commend to you my 2014 book, Ghost Stories of the Long Beach Peninsula.  She’s the star of Chapter One.) Perhaps she is trying to contact me again and, this time, has discovered the computer.  My first encounter with her, after all, involved a typewriter and there has never been a doubt in my mind that she was trying to communicate.  That was more than forty years ago, and though Mrs. Crouch has made herself known periodically in the meantime, this was the first actual computer attempt – and in the email program at that!

Mrs. Crouch — still in residence?

Obviously, she’s mastered the basic concept.  It’s just that her keyboarding skills leave much to be desired.  I don’t really have another forty years to wait, so I hope she finds a way to shorten her learning curve.  I really don’t want to get the message, whatever it is, in person (so to speak.).  I’d much rather it come by mail.  E-mail, that is.  So, here’s my message to Mrs. C:  “You go girl!”  But, hopefully, on someone else’s keyboard until she’s got it down.  (I wonder if she thinks the ‘g’ in gmail stands for ghost? Or does she even know she’s a ghost.  And there she goes…messing with my mind and clotting up my time.  Again.)