Well, folks, I now have a brand new friend. Her name is Rosie Gal, due to her gorgeous rose-colored shine and utterly vibrant personality.

As of yesterday, she’s taken the place of silver-haired, steadfast-yet-storage-deprived, now disabled, Lady Gina. (Gina means “silver” in Japanese, FYI.)

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking of my MacBook Air Apple computers: One 6 1/2 years old which is no longer functioning; the other just slipped out of her plastic-encased box and clicking along eagerly.

The Story

Last year, Best Buy had a series of computers on sale which looked very enticing.

My old MacBook Air (Lady Gina) was working well but updates were not possible due to storage issues. Plus poor Lady Gina had been through so many trials and tribulations: dropped several times on hard floors, dragged on many transcontinental flights and local countryside bus journeys, keyboard letters rubbed off in numerous places, not to mention scratches, dents and dullness issues.

In my excitement of retiring Lady Gina, I checked out the before-Christmas sales and purchased a rose-tinted, 2021 updated Apple MacBook Air version with plenty of storage and additions to make me happy.

With my coveted possession in hand and not wanting to see it spoiled with use, I waited.

I waited to unpack gal Rosie until I was ready to deal with what I assumed would be hassles in transferring data, set-up, adjusting passwords, connecting to favored networks and so on.

After all, Lady Gina was still working just fine, albeit slowly and with “More storage needed” pop-ups whenever I wanted to download something. That was OK. I could deal with that.

Now fast forward 8 1/2 months later.

Here we are in August of 2023, with my new teaching placement on the horizon, and me thinking, “Hmm. Rosie gal is still waiting for her debut in the Wieck household. Maybe it’s about time to let her out.”

Despite this thought, I hesitated yet again until . . . . the coffee incident on Friday.

Tragedy in my little church office

I was finishing up some emails for my Mission Advocate position in my little church office, and quite anxious to get out of there on a Friday late afternoon, when the unthinkable happened: While taking that quick, final swig of coffee filled with half-and-half, I spilled.

I spilled coffee on myself.

I spilled coffee on the dark blue batik cloth that covers my desk.

And, yes, I spilled coffee on the computer.

The culprits: coffee and a splash of half-and-half

My re-constructed visual for your amusement

Granted it wasn’t much but that little bit was all that was needed.

Circuits whirred. The screen flickered. The cursor stuck.

I watched in horror as a liquidy, wavy sheen began seeping it’s way across my screen-saver mountain landscape. I watched helplessly while it engulfed my desktop files one by one, as colors began to fade and darkness took over.

I desperately tried to sop up what I could, including holding the computer keyboard upside down in the hopes the coffee would drain out, but it was useless.

Lady Gina was damaged beyond her ability to recuperate.

She was disintegrating fast, holding on just long enough for me to quickly slip in that external hard drive to back up what was not in my iCloud account. (Yes, lesson learned from computer geeks who remind us careless folk over and over and over again to ALWAYS back up everything on a daily basis.)

Thus my story of Lady Gina’s demise and Rosie Gal’s entrance into the cyberspace world.

Protective measures now taken

Rosie is currently speeding along smoothly, with only a 20-minute task on my part to turn her on and get all that was needed for our new relationship to begin. Passwords saved, Netflix connected, bookmarks operational, email accounts accessed . . . What a relief!

In preparation of further mishaps, I have now ordered a hardcover snap-on case for those future accidental drops, a keyboard protector for upcoming spills and a screen cover to keep off dust, pet hairs and splashes that might send me once again into panic mode.

Despite the tech headache, it seems all has ended up for the best.

As for Lady Gina, she’ll be delivered to my local computer store as a give-away. If salvageable, I’m happy to have someone try returning her from the after life. She’s served me well these many years and deserves a little of God’s saving grace.

From Marshall, Illinois, here’s hoping your computer woes never, ever, ever match mine.