I have a Mac, which means I have the “spinning wheel of death” when Mac wants me to wait for it to do its thang. People with PC’s get an hour glass, but Macs have this little color wheel that rotates, letting you know that the Mac is thinking and you’d better not mess with it if you know what’s good for you.
I learned this the hard way – the same way I learn everything on the computer. I typed out something complex in a table and then got frustrated because the table wouldn’t size the way I wanted it to. So I tugged it with my cursor on one side and then the other. But I went too fast, and the confounded spinning wheel came up. I tried to save the document but the program was frozen like a tongue stuck to an icy flagpole. It wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t respond. Then it crashed, and my document disappeared forever.
When something won’t work on the computer, I start clicking and trying something else. When my aggravation escalates, I click even harder. The Mac does not like this. Not one bit. It sends the spinning wheel out to sit right in the middle of what I’m doing, taking its own sweet time to go away.
If I so much as twitch a finger on my mouse, that wheel says, “I TOLD you to BACK OFF, and you wouldn’t listen – you never listen, and I’ve warned you over and over and over again. How does someone get through a dumb thick brain like yours? When you see me, you better behave because if you so much as LOOK at me the wrong way, I’m going to send everything you got right out to space where you’ll never, ever, ever see it again. Understand?”
That wheel is a bee-otch. Sometimes my computer starts running slow. Maybe it got a little too wild with my PC and it’s got a hangover. Who knows what goes on in my office after I go to bed? There’s a radio on the other side of the PC, it might be playing techno-funk that the PC and Mac can’t resist – they dance and party all through the night – their mice snuggling in the dark shadows. Who knows why these computers run slow for no reason.
When it happens, out pops that spinning wheel, like a rat coming up the toilet bowl. This actually happened once to someone I knew. They heard some splashing in the toilet and opened the lid. There was a rat, sometimes referred to as a “sewer rat,” thrashing around in the toilet water. I don’t know what they did with it – in this situation, what could you do? Flush the toilet screeching, “Go back where you came from, you smarmy vermin?” Would you succumb to your child’s pleas of “Can we keep it mommy, pleeeee-ease? We’ll take really good care of it, honest we will. Can we, can we, can we?”
That’s the point; you don’t know WHAT to do with that spinning wheel any more than you’d know what to do with that unwelcome varmint in your toilet.
I love my Mac, and it’s fast and easy and fun to operate, but I hate that wheel. Always will.
Thanks to My Super….cious Readers!
By Suzanne Olsen
On September 4, 2010
In inspiration
We’re going to go downtown to the annual “Art in the Pearl” outdoor art exhibit today. It’s wonderful – lots of very talented artisans and craftspeople displaying their talents. The “Pearl” is a section of town. I think everyone must be juried because everything is so superbly done. If you don’t know what juried means, ask Google. No, wait. I’ll tell you, otherwise you might not come back because that’s the way you are.
If you want to know exactly what way you are, it is this. You are great! No, fantastic! No, you are supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Don’t know what that means? Or even how to say it? Or whether I spelled it right? Or how many stars there are in the sky? Do I have to explain everything?
It comes from an old Mary Poppins movie, and if you’ve heard it, even once in your life, you will be singing it all day today because it’s the kind of thing that sticks in your brain like the suction cups of an octopus.
According to Wikipedia, that brilliant encyclopedia of unverified information, the word, which has 34 letters, can be broken down as follows: super- “above”, cali- “beauty”, fragilistic- “delicate”, expiali- “to atone”, and docious- “educable.” This makes very little sense but so do a lot of words in the English language so I’m not going to hold that against it. According to the 1964 Walt Disney film, it is defined as “something to say when you have nothing to say.”
Well I have something to say, so that doesn’t apply either. Be that as it may, and albeit, you guys are super…cious because many of you are saying some very nice things about what you’re reading. For instance, Donna T, a member of my writing group, commented, “Too fun!” and “Wonderful, Suzanne, absolutely wonderful!” I am gushing and blushing as I type this – thanks so much, Donna. She just got published in an anthology of inspirational readings for soldiers. Whoo-hoo!
Elussyelalp left this comment yesterday, “It’s such a great site. fanciful, acutely fascinating!!!”
Aw shucks.
Linda Kuhlman, another friend in my writer’s group, had this to say, “”Love this, Suzanne! Your wit never ceases to make me chuckle, a welcome diversion from the ‘to do’ list I stare at every morning. I’m going joggin’ now!” This was in response to me writing about southerner’s droppin’ the “g” on “ing” words. BTW, good for you, Linda! You keep joggin’ and I’ll keep bloggin’!
Another reader said, “Shoes go and come every couple of years in the world of high fashion and they are a seemingly permanent fixture in catalogs from department stores ranging…” I get a few of these – comments that are totally out of context and are, I’m afraid, people who don’t even read my posts but just want to lure me to their sites, or worse, to spam me. I’ve got to tell you, I’m bruised and swollen from all the spamming I get. Like this comment from CLERGYWERWEDO (that’s his/her capitalization, not mine – I’ve got better things to capitalize): “Buy reductil online.” There is no way, in any shape or form, this could be a real response to anything I’ve ever written, so Mr. (or Ms.) CLERGYWERWEDO, take your reductil and shove it up your ASS!
I apologize for that. I know I’ve cursed and been crass in some of these posts, which is bad.
What did you say? I’ve also been very tacky? Well, yes, I guess on occasion I have.
What do you mean, “on occasion my ass – more like all the time?”
Hey! You want a piece of me? YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME????
Sorry, perhaps I’m getting a little too “fanciful” here. I have these conversations in my head all the time – where I have imaginary arguments with snotty people and I come off, in my head, as quite clever and winning the argument and they are reduced to a pile of smoking rubble or apologizing profusely and begging to be my BFF. This is what happened just now. I imagined that you, my wonderful readers, were criticizing me for being tacky, and I started fighting back and being the tough guy like on that Seinfeld re-run where Elaine gets in a verbal tiff with Mr. Castanza and he immediately escalates it to a physical fight by saying the “you want a piece of me?” line. Pretty funny stuff.
But I know your comments are sincere, and they give me warm and cozy encouragement that I very much appreciate, except for ALL OF YOU SPAMMERS ! I DO NOT NEED MY WEBSITE OPTIMIZED! I DO NOT NEED VIAGRA!
Oops, I got sidetracked on the “Art in the Pearl” topic. Good! Something to look forward to tomorrow.