if you're reading this my computer is already dead

Oh, computer, please start working again.

Please.

Let's start at the beginning.

On Monday I was laid off from my job.

Today is already Wednesday.

But Monday feels like it happened just a few hours ago.

Because ever since that lovely, surprise, kleenex-free moment (where kleenex was very much needed - but not to be found) on Monday, where I was simply to file for unemployment and look for work - I have had nothing but stupid set backs.

Yesterday: my phone died.

It did. It died. Out of nowhere. Right on time.

So I went to the phone store to get a new phone. And I did - after an hour of being activated - get a new (pink) phone.

But when I got home I realized that I was missing the manual and companion disk - for my new pink phone.

I could have probably gotten by without it.

But, just as I was thinking that I could get by without it - my old phone rang.

The girl from the phone store was calling to let me know I had left my manual and disk at the phone store.

I could barely understand her. It was the old, dead phone after all.

So I went back out (into the tundra) to the phone store (on foot).

No problem.

But I did not "forget" anything. It was because she was unorganized that I didn't get those things (with the new phone - in the box, where they belonged).

It was because she kept trying to work within this tiny amount of space - on her counter. But everything (my old phone, the box with the new phone, her keyboard, her pen, her banana, her sandwich) didn't fit onto that counter.

I kept thinking, move your lunch elsewhere, move the keyboard back where it belongs.. (there was a space for it lower on the desk).

Just, clear off that space.

She acted as though the whole thing - her lack of space - was a brand new problem.

An "all a sudden", on the spot inconvenience.

As though she hadn't dealt with it ever before (because - really, she hadn't).

And she seemed very concerned with her new pink manicure.

Very concerned.

I mean, I'm happy for her and her manicure - but what good do such perfectly pink fingernails (with a finish like justice) have to do with anything - if the woman behind the perfect pink manicure can't get it together enough to get me what goes in the box with my new phone (when I leave)?

Or, for that matter, activate my phone?

Because my new pink phone had not been activated. That is why my old red phone rang when she called me.

It really seemed like the new phone had been activated.

It really did.

It was forty minutes. Lots of waiting and boiling to death in my heavy coat.

I don't know. I am out of a job. I can't afford any phone right now. And I guess I have all the time in the world - but at this point all I could think was, get your shit together, dumbass.

Not that I said this. No. It didn't show.

What did show was that I was exhausted. That I had been crying. That I couldn't stand how hot it was in there.

But, forty minutes later, this time with her boss right at her side (and obviously pissed off at her) it got reactivated. My phone.

Her boss was so aggrevated that I kept apologizing.

It was crazy.

If he (her boss) was mad at her - couldn't he have kept that between them?

Now I found them both to be totally unprofessional - and, as much as she was clueless - I felt for her.

And you know, it's not my problem "to feel for her".

So I left. Finally. My new phone activated. At last.

But it wasn't activated.

I went home. I plugged in some numbers - then I went to return a phone call from eight hours earlier. You know, trying to be professional.

And I got an outgoing message: your phone has not been activated..

I called customer service on my landline.

There was no record that my new phone had ever been activated.

That girl had done NOTHING.

Ok.

I got it all straightened out.

Then I went to bed.

I mean right to bed. I wanted to make this day and the one before it just go away.

Sleep.

It would give me strength. Peace. I would wake up a better person.

And maybe, who knows - maybe all of this was just a dream?

I got up this morning, remembered that I was unemployed, and attempted to sign on to AOL.

I needed to do a couple of things:

I needed to file for unemployment and I wanted to check craigslist for jobs.

Oh, and check my email. I gleaned from the few messages that I did get (on my new phone) that some leads were being sent to to me.

But I could barely get on line.

And when I did - it was ten minutes before I could download anything.

It was choppy and freezy and stupid.

It dropped me and signed me out - without notice.

I kept rebooting.

I kept going into my security to try to restore things. To clean things. To compress things. To get things back to normal.

I went online for live help.

But it was impossible. I kept timing out (per all the things I just described).

So I called AOL on the phone. My new phone.

I was on hold forever. My call got dropped twice. Because my new phone royally sucks.

Finally, when I did get through, they said they would connect me to the right department (which I thought I had already gotten through to) and I got an out going message with a number.

I wrote down the number. Hung up and placed the call.

the number rang and a woman in a breathy voice informed me that I need to be eighteen to continue this call.

I pressed "yes". It was a sex chat line.

I tried again.

Yep, sex chat.

I got through to another tech support person after waiting fifty-five minutes.

I got through and she wanted to help me.

But I was so busy telling her about the wait times and the sex chat line - that, she too, dropped me - quite by "mistake".

I was certainly about to be blacklisted.

Certainly.

Eventually I got someone who helped me restore whatever had happened to my connection.

I was so grateful. By then.

To get what I've payed for. so grateful.

(I hardly brought up the sex chat thing at all)

Ten hours.

That is how long it took to get back on line.

Yes.

I'm going to go to bed.

Maybe this was all a dream.

Maybe..