How my love affair with an analog computing device left me completely and utterely single in my tech life.

Two weeks ago, my family owned three computers. The first was a shiny new laptop I had received for Christmas. The second was an ancient unnamed desktop from the late '90s that sat in a closet gathering dust.

The third computer, a laptop named Cidny (yes, it is spelled like that), wasn't as old as our unnamed PC, but, unfortunately, young age is not equivalent to young looks. Poor Cidny had traveled to over 16 states, been on two different continents (three if the Hawaiian volcanoes keep erupting) and has been dropped approximately 12 times.

As one would expect, Cidny eventually went kaput. Or capoot. While this was expected, Cidny's death was untimely, considering I was in the middle of writing the most brilliant FCN post ever. On February 14th, 2008 Cidny quietly slipped away into analog non-existence and joined the masses of outdated PCs and all useless Macs. The FCN crew quietly (or in C's case, loudly) added this to the long list of things to mourn.

So we were down to one laptop and one old desktop. This created an interesting dilemma, considering the size of our family. So we developed a system for choosing who used the computer first. The process consisted of the following important steps:

1. International Dibs Protocol - Upon the arrival of the involved participants at the breakfast table, the person who first calls “dibs” becomes the moderator for the following discussions.

2. Daily Planner and Presentation - The participants give their plan for the day and why they believe they should be allowed to use the computer first. Everyone is allotted ten minutes for their presentation. All speech material that is not original must be sourced and the original documentation available for further discussion.

3. Cultural Constructivism - The participants then cross-examine the presenter. If his/her projects are deemed harmful to mankind, s/he may be expelled from any further discussion and will probably lose the communal vote.

4. The Communal Vote - All participants are allotted one vote, which they may give to any person other than themselves.

Because there is no clear way to measure the cultural usefulness of reading online comics and playing video games, this process often takes a long time. The end result is a very long debate on the benefits of Monkey Ball Junior.

This democratic system worked for a few days until some of our family members attempted to start a revolution. Although the supporters of peace and democracy (that would be me) eventually won the long and bloody battle, my laptop was destroyed in the process. To make a long story short:

Buy computer insurance.

If you don’t have computer insurance, don’t put soda by the keyboard.

If you don't have computer insurance and put soda by the keyboard, spare yourself heart ache and don’t arm wrestle by the soda and the computer.

So my family is left with one ancient desktop that doesn't even have FireFox. Maybe someday I will find a new love. Until then, I sit here typing on a library computer, tragically, hopelessly and technologically single.