Down With Technology, In With Stupidity

Listening: Anywhere in the Universe - Astronaut Wife

I only met you yesterday
And now you're taking me on a trip
To the farthest reaches of the galaxy
I didn't think it would be like this.
Don't think I've seen such a Godforsaken place
Nothing around but rocks and mud
If this is what it's like to be in outer space
I'd like to go back home, thank you very much.

I really, really should be studying for my European History exam tomorrow, but the urge to write is positively overpowering today. Besides, the first half of that course was spent detailing, I am not kidding, the background to the course. My prof said so herself: "Yeah, you don't need to bother taking notes on anything yet. This is all just background."

Wow.

I had my very first MUN final exam this morning! It was Classics, and it may or may not have lulled me into a false sense of security. Why the fark were we given two hours for that exam? I needed only one--Chastity needed a mere twenty minutes. Agggh so easy. The jump-start Chastity and Vickie might have given my brain by bringing me a home-made cinnamon roll may have helped, though.

This post by Jam at first seemed wildly coincidental before I realized--oh--wait--this happens every goddamned day in the MUN Library. I encourage you to read mine first, because by the time you're done with his, mine seems like a papercut versus a shark attack. But I'm going to bitch about it anyway, because that's what this blog is for.

So after my Classics exam, and lingering for a period of time outside in the Atrium with the hilarious Chastity and Vickie, I decided that it was high time to go print off the essay I had due in pretty shortly. So off I go, trekking to the library. This is made mildly unpleasant by the fact that the campus is awash with muck--not quite mud, not quite slush. Squick. See, I don't have winter boots. Just crappy, leaky sneakers. But I digress.

I cheered up a bit upon entering the Library when I discovered the gigantic Christmas tree they have there in the lobby. It's probably been there all along and I've never noticed, but whatever. I had serious work to do. I sloughed through the mass of panicky students to find an available place for me to set my laptop down. When I finally found it, lo! It was across from Beautiful Latino Man, a gorgeous specimen of masculinity whom I have been lusting after for the past few months. I figured it would be best to try to ignore him, as nothing shorts out a keyboard quite like copious amounts of drool.

Trying not to be a creepy stalker girl, I opened up my laptop and plugged in my Jump Drive. Fortunately I'd had the foresight to transfer my essay from my desktop onto the drive, so I could easily access the document and print it off with no hassle. Science!

My computer didn't think so.

"Hey," it said in that demeaning way that I'm certain most computers have. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Why, I'm accessing a document so I can print off an essay and pass University, Mr. Computer.

"And how do you propose to do that, princess?"

Why, I'm just going to load Nomad, access the document, print it, and be out of here lickety-split.

"Like hell you are."

Shit.

I stared unblinking for several minutes at the screen as Abiword, truly the Devil's Own word program, proceeded to make mincemeat of my nicely-organized document. Oh hell, I thought, I so do not have time for this. I set down to business and had a nice friendly chat with Abiword. Only by "nice" I mean "angry" and "friendly chat" I mean "bitchslapped all the hell over cyberspace and back again".

When Abiword finally lay cowering in a corner, whimpering and quivering, I sat back, cracked my fingers, and got down to business. I hit the icon for Nomad, the Library-based program they installed on my laptop to allow me to print straight from there, typed in my account name, put in my password, and hit Connect.

Error, my computer bleated. Username does not exist.

Excuse me?

I tried again. And again. Three times in rapid succession, Nomad declared that I did not exist. Now I was starting to get seriously pissed off. Leaving everything right where it was, I got up and went to hunt down somebody who would help me with this contrary bitch of a program. The help I got was at the Computer Servicing desk, only it wasn't any help at all. When I explained my problem to the bespeckled young man behind the counter, all I got in response was a wide-eyed, blinking silence. I had to explain it to him twice more before he got what the problem was--and then he didn't know how to fix it. "Just a second," he said. "I'll go find someone who can help." And off he trots.

I sit there waiting for another ten minutes before Smart Guy returns to the desk. It takes him another five to remember that I'm standing there waiting for answers. He gives me a conciliatory look, and informed me that he was terribly sorry, but he couldn't find anyone to deal with the problem. Normally I'm pretty forgiving, especially when it comes to the nameless peons who just do the legwork, seeing as I am one of those myself. But when academic lives hang in the balance--more accurately, my academic life--I'm willing to break a few of my rules. I informed Astro Boy in my chilliest tone that he had better find someone who could help me, and fast. The expression of true and unutterable terror he cast me over his shoulder was totally worth whatever guilt I might have felt about it later. I may look disarmingly feminine in my cutesy winter scarf, but if you get between me and my agenda, I will kill you, kill your dog, burn down your house, and give your entire family cancer.

Another ten minutes go by before Doctor Watson comes slithering back. This time he damn well remembers who I am. In as nice a voice as I imagine he could muster, he tells me that whatever supervisor he just came back from grovelling to has informed him that they really have no way of fixing my dilemma. WHAT. Just as I'm wondering whether it'd be kosher to kill him on the spot or send a slathering beast from Hell after him later, he tells me, "But don't worry, I'll just give you a new account, and you can go on ahead."

WHAT. You could not have told me this before now. Gosh, thanks, Skippy. You are truly a credit to the human race.

I trudge back to my laptop clutching a scrap of paper with my new account name and password, weary and daunted but far from defeated. I sit back down at my laptop, all set to print, when suddenly something causes me to jerk my head up. It is a voice--a voice so rich and warm it could melt butter. Guess who it belongs to.

"Excuse me," Beautiful Latino Man says, "but there was someone by your computer a minute ago."

I am so enthralled by his voice (and the fact that he's actually even talking to me) that it takes me a few minutes to realize what he's saying. Wait. Back up. What? I check my document. Hey, guess what. 90% of it is deleted. In its place are the words L33T HAXX0RZ.

I despise humanity.

I spent the next twenty minutes rescuing my original document from my Jump Drive, allowing Abiword to have its mandatory rape-fest fun with it, then bitchslapping it back into submission. Finally finished, I picked up where I had left off, opening Nomad and trying to log in. It works. Shocker! Beginning to calm down a bit, I type in the name of one of the three printers dotting the Commons and sit back with a sigh, waiting for the thing to load.

Beep. "There was a problem loading printer icomprt3."

Are you kidding me? No matter. I try the second one.

Beep. No message. I wait for a few minutes for the message confirming my connection to the printer. Nothing happens. Not a goddamn thing. After five minutes of just waiting, I click the screen and discover that Nomad is Not Responding. Royally pissed by now, I exit the program, reopen it, log back in, and don't even bother with icomprt2 this time. I go straight for icomprt1, and this time, miracle of miracles, it works.

Until I realize that it printed wrong, and I have to do it a second time.

When I finally had my master essay, all fresh and ready to be passed in, I went hunting for a stapler. A woman was behind the counter of the Computer Servicing desk when I scouted my way there, replacing Captain Caveman. I didn't pay her any mind at first, studying instead the vast array of staplers on the desk. When I picked one up, however, some alarm went off in Crazy Bitch's head. She spun towards me from where she was talking to two other people and skewered me with a hawklike glare.

"You can't use those," she snapped without prelim.

I stare at her for several seconds, then lower my gaze to the umpteen staplers before me, then look back at her, uncomprehending. Is she serious? The look on her face assures me she is. Nevermind that these are clearly Library stock, for use when the students require them. Crazy Bitch is hoarding them and is prepared to behead me to keep it that way.

I decide, in that second, that I don't care. I have been in this Library for nigh on a goddamn hour and I am sick to hell of it. Without breaking her gaze, I pick up a stapler, clack it shut on the ends of my pages, and leave Crazy McBitch gaping after me and my freshly-stapled essay. I pack up my laptop and say goodbye and thank-you to Beautiful Latino Man, and then I stomp out of the Commons, bringing a cloud of fury and anger in my wake. I resist the urge to flip the building off as I leave.

I got the essay in on time, but that's of little comfort, don't you think? I'll say it is. Now all I can do is sit here bitching, studying History in my pajamas, buried in a comforter and emerging only briefly now and again for a sip of sweet tea. I reaffirm what I told Jam on his Blog. The QEII Library truly is the first layer of Hell.

Icarus takes comfort in the knowledge that everyone has days like this.