This weekend, I had to put a loved one through a very long, painful process. If truth be told, she wasn't good enough for me anymore. She lacked the youthful exuberance I loved so much when we first met. I hope she understood that I only did it because I love her.
Love is patient; love is kind. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things ... except for slow loading times, Web browser crashes, "Warning: Illegal Operation" messages and a delinquent sound card.
I reformatted my computer. I backed up the necessary files and pressed "The Big Red Button." It really was for the best.
Don't misunderstand, it was not an easy thing to do. It took eleven CDs to back up all of my files. I had to decide how much of my stolen music (MP3s) I really needed. I had to search through countless numbers of images and old HTML files to decide what I couldn't live without. I had to save bookmarks, my buddy list and my "Counter-Strike" downloads. A guy like me has a lot of important stuff on his hard drive.
Fortunately, my gaming group was here to keep me company. While the back-up files were being burned to a disc, the five of us attempted to put 15 different characters through the "Ruins of Castle Greyhawk." Only two of them made it out alive. Good thing that didn't foreshadow my reformatting experience.
After all the files were backed up, I signed on to AOL Instant Messenger one last time to tell some of my friends who were online that, if I didn't sign on in the next two hours, they should call the police.
I took the Compaq Recovery Disk out of my silver CD wallet. I held it in my hand and admired it for a moment. Its navy blue hue was without a fingerprint; I had only used it thrice before. I said a prayer, inserted the disc and pressed "CTRL + ALT + DELETE" twice.
I held my breath. The screen went black, and then blue. Everything looked to be OK, and I exhaled.
I sat down in front of the tube and watched re-runs of "Friends" while the recovery discs worked their magic. That wacky Chandler was at it again, and the television kept my mind off of the reformatting process. I was erasing history, after all. Reformatting a hard drive is like asking an old friend to forget everything you'd ever done together and to start over from scratch. Can you imagine if Chandler said to Joey, "Lets pretend we never had a duck living in our apartment. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Chandler. What's your name?" Unthinkable!
When it was all over, I sat down at my desk and looked at the screen. My Natalie Portman wallpaper was gone and the friendly, familiar desktop icons were replaced by Internet offers and links to online registration sites. I frowned, and then I smiled.
The rebuilding process was a difficult one. I had to re-install the printer software, the portable MP3 player and the ethernet card. Then came Instant Messenger, WinAmp, "Half-Life" (followed by "Counter-Strike"), Microsoft Word, WinZip, RealPlayer and Quicktime.
And then, the updates. Oh, the endless updates! Windows updates, Internet Explorer updates, Security updates and "Counter-Strike" updates. You would have thought my hard drive was update New York.
Around this time, the police had arrived. I forgot to sign on Instant Messenger and tell my friends everything was okay. The cops were understanding, though, and they even sat down to watch "Cannibal! The Musical!" with me. It was good times.
Now, my "new" computer runs like a dream. And it makes me wonder: Would the world be a better place if real people could be reformatted? And why did Joey and Chandler keep a pet duck, anyway?
Write to Ben at bbmcshane@bsu.edu
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