And so the old Hewlett Packard puked its final file to crash like the stock market of the 20s. Its seven years of files and pictures that I’ve been getting around to backing up suddenly lost forever. And so began that oh so familiar bout of endless anxieties brought on by shopping for something new. The first effort was a new Dell desk top package that we brought home with all the glee of a kid with a new toy. Hours later after endless phone discussions with technicians from Comcast , technicians from my modem manufacturer and some non English speaking representative of Dell in Malaysia it became pointedly obvious…..no one could get this thing on line. So we carefully repacked the bitch and brought it back for the deserved refund.
The second attempt brought us to the place that promised itself to be the “Better Buy” where I asked a young man his help.
“You need to talk to one of them dudes in a blue shirt Man” was his advice and I had to ask
“A blue shirt….like the one you’re wearing?” the color blind little twerp looked down at his apparel and mumbled something of little interest to me and I moved on to find someone else in a blue shirt with some semblance of coherence.
The resulting purchase was some super machine Asus all in one wireless package that the wife waxed eloquent over as it eliminated many ugly vines of wires hanging from the back of the desk. Unfortunately the super machine proved to be so slow and hung up so often that the following week it found itself flung upon the returns desk of the place known as the “Better Buy”. The well trained steely eyed twenty year old girl tried to stare me down while asking……
“Sir…did you check all the connections before bringing it back?”
“ No … no I didn’t. I want my money back….now.”
The third attempt included a question to a seemingly knowledgeable salesman in a blue shirt.
“Do you think the sound is better from the built in speakers of this monitor than that one?”
“Definitely Sir, in fact it’s $10.00 cheaper making it a better deal all round.”
Like the super Asus the week before the monitor found itself transported back across town to be flung upon the returns desk. The return to the store was because the sound was definitely not better than the other monitor costing $10.00 more. Having no internal speakers…… it had no sound at all……
