I was packing things to go spend Christmas with my dad in California when I opened up my sticker-covered laptop and found that no sound would come out. I had an hour before I had to catch the shuttlebus to the Seattle airport. The poor thing was coming apart at the hinges, so I knew its days were numbered, but when the day finally comes, you find that you are not ready. All those partially-started novels, saved pictures, audiobooks, and even a couple MS Paint doodles are still on there on that dilapidated thing, hanging in the balance between slightly salvageable and digital oblivion.
I got the laptop when the laptop that came before it died. My first laptop had been a birthday present for my fourteenth birthday, and I had it until the day that smoke started to come out of the CAPS key. I brought it to the friendly local computer repair shop where the saintly gentleman there carefully took it apart free of charge and regretfully told me that it was not salvageable. I was sixteen when I had to say goodbye to Laptop #1, and my stepdad, moved to kindness by my sorry state, drove me over to Best Buy and got me Laptop #2.
I swore I would take good care of Laptop #2, and care for it I did, but I also used it to death. It was the central hub for all I did. I wrote so many short stories and partially-started novels on there, I played through all of Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, and I adorned it with the best stickers I could find. That computer even saw me get my first job as a medical transcriptionist. Unfortunately, even the best-cared-for computers eventually see the toll of use. Many hours of medical transcription and playing Fallout wore off some of the keys. The hinges in particular eventually took some damage; the seam holding the two halves of the hinge together popped apart. Even through all of this, I swore I wouldn't get a new one until Laptop #2's very last day. I saw that promise through.
Christmas was coming, and I noticed that Laptop #2 was getting slow. Despite its physical condition, I thought that as long as my games still ran well, it would be fine. When it took half an hour to turn on that fateful morning, I knew something was wrong. I took it downstairs to my stepdad, who did some programming magic to find out that it indeed needed to be sent to Laptop Hospice Care. I sent it to its tomb in my closet and was on my way. I had a flight to catch and no time to do anything about it. Once I reached California, I sheepishly asked my dad if we could stop by Best Buy at some point. He took me by there later and helped me pick out Laptop #3, upon which I write this article. Being a grown-up with a job, I had to part with a few hundred dollars to get it, but Laptop #3 is a nicer model and I am confident that it will last a good long while. Though Laptop #3 is faster and has a touchscreen, it did not see me through half of high school the way that Laptop #2 did, nor does it have the stickers. If I am honest, I am afraid to put too many stickers on this one because it is as mortal as the last. I have gone no further than sticking on NASA sticker that a friend gave to me.
Yesterday I dug out Laptop #2 from its tomb in my closet to see if I could salvage a few audibook files off of it. I was able to transfer them over to the new laptop with a thumb drive, but that sticker-covered rascal got me feeling sentimental. I shelled out a few bucks at Comic Con for some of those stickers. I was so proud of how I'd decorated it. I am still torn between returning it to its tomb in case I remember another file that I have to pull of of it and taking it to be recycled. I think it would want to be recycled, though, so that it can help to prevent the oncoming cyberpunk dystopia I spent so many hours writing about on it. Perhaps that is the way it can pass on from laptop purgatory into digital heaven.
Here's to you, Laptop #2. You did a great job.
