A Letter to My Broken 2006 MacBook
Dear MacBook,
Since I’m typing this using a Windows Vista notebook (against my will, of course), I fear it’s already too late. Oh, my dear, sweet MacBook, you’re dying. It’s like Love Story, but instead of a girl dying of leukemia, you’re a computer with a malfunctioning circuit board. You’re Ali MacGraw, and I’m Ryan O’Neal, except, of course, you were never involved in a passionate affair with Steve McQueen, and I tend not to make sexual advances towards my children at the funeral of my significant other. But like Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal in Love Story, we made one hell of a couple.
Pictured: Me, left. MacBook 2006, Right.
We looked downright iconic together: me, the shaggy-haired chick with bangs sitting in a coffee shop, and you, the sleek, white laptop with the glowing apple logo that assured no one could mistake you for anything other than a Macintosh computer. We looked so cool and bohemian, MacBook. We were different from everyone else, so different than the 50 other girls with bangs and MacBooks in the coffee shop. We were real iconoclasts. This is what makes what I’m about to say so very hard.
I’m going to get a new computer, MacBook. I know, I know. Spare me your sad, spinning beach ball icons. Truthfully, we should’ve known the end was coming for a long time. Your faulty AirPort, your slowness to respond when I tried to refresh my email inbox for the thousandth time— these should have been clues that our time together was coming to an end. Oh, MacBook, I was in denial! But I’ve now come to accept your imminent demise, and I’m afraid this is goodbye.
Why can’t I just have you repaired, you ask? If only it were that simple. It’s no use having you repaired when I could just put the astronomical cost of your repair towards the purchase of a brand new laptop. I know I’m pulling a Tom Brady by trading you in for a younger, sleeker, faster model, but I need something more efficient and reliable for my hectic Internet life. Those Betty White to Host the Oscars and Betty White for Secretary of Agriculture Facebook groups aren’t gonna join themselves.
There’s no need for that kind of ‘language’, MacBook.
But we had a lot of good times together, didn’t we? You got me through homework, essays, and procrastinating on homework and essays. Remember the time we downloaded that Japanese game show? Your sleek LED display showed the bizarre depths of human depravity in crystal-clear detail. And remember that time we wrote a letter asking to be excused from jury duty, and I used 20 pt Comic Sans font so they would think I was a simpleton? Your always-reliable spell check thought I was crazy for spelling jury duty “Juree Doody.” We shirked my basic civic duties as an American citizen together, MacBook.
I know, of course, that you’re just a machine, but I can’t help but feel our relationship was more than that. I mean, you spent more time in my lap than most boys these past four years of college. That time I accidentally closed you on the skin of my upper thigh? It was like you were giving me a hickey straight from Steve Jobs himself. I called it my “Apple love bite.” Yes, MacBook, it was totally good for me.
Now it’s time for you to go to the great KeyNote presentation in the sky, where you’ll join floppy discs and that iPod I accidentally dropped in the toilet. It’s a place where your software is always up to date, and you can organize all the iPhoto albums you want. You’ll be happier there, though I hate that it has to be like this. I’d say I’m sorry, MacBook, but I can’t, because, well, you know.
Love always,
A. Paul
The Gates to Hipster Heaven
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