Technology: That two-timing son of a...

I have been having an affair ever since I was twelve.

Someone has given me a certain something special, I believe the French call it, "je ne sais quoi," or some such nonsense.  Those fucking frogs are always making me piss my pants with all the funny shit they say!  I mean, who else would think "whore's ovaries" would be a good snack?  Hillarious!

Anyway, my special person has always given me what I wanted... what I NEEDED... even when I didn't know that I needed it.  Talk about support.  

As far as I know, this person isn't French.  Maybe I should ask.

Let me tell you how my love affair began.  Hopefully that will give you some clarity on the whole situation.  No no... it wasn't some whack job pedophile.  Why are you always thinking about pedophiles?

So... I was twelve.  My world was still fairly new to me.  I didn't understand a lot, but I knew how to set my dad's digital watch, and that son of a bitch couldn't.  He'd sit there for an hour pushing buttons, cursing at this piece of plastic.  Finally, I would come up, press buttons for maybe a minute and be done with it.

"Now stop whining old man!" I would say.  Then I would run.  He was bigger than me after all, and nobody lashes out harder than a whiny bitch that just got faced. 

Hell... At that time I had one of the first portable video games ever.  It was actually a crappy watch with a crappy game on it.  I loved Pac-mania at the time.  However, this crappy watch/game was far from waterproof, and it was claimed by Lake Minnetonka.  

So was the second one.

So... I was twelve.  I walked into my mom's house, and there it was.  The first edition MacIntosh computer.  It sat on the desk, mouse ready, screen on, motors whirring as the machine read the 3 1/2 inch floppy (which was stiff as a porn star's cock, talk about a misnomer).

It was then that I began my lifelong love affair with Steve Jobs.  I actually didn't realize I was in love with him.  But as I grew older and got some perspective, I came to realize he was the object of my affection.

And yes, we drifted apart for awhile while he did other things.  We were on a break!

I met and married the wife before he came back into my life.  By that time, I still had the original Mac, which lasted through three years at college.  But it was replaced by the Mac TV in 1994... a crappy TV built into a black Mac.  But it had a remote, and a cable hook up.  Too bad it also had pixels the size of baby squirrels.

Looking back on it, it reminds me of that fucking watch.

Though, I'm not still buying Pac-watches, and I am still buying Apple products.  I have the original Mac, the Mac TV, a Performa 6400, first gen iBook, 17" PowerBook, 2 G5 towers, 2nd gen iPod (I waited on that one), two 3rd gen iPods, a video Nano, and a partridge in a mother fucking pear tree.

And that's just the old stuff, the stuff I barely use.  Those are decorations, even the ones I keep in the gimp room of the basement.  They are mine, and you can't have them!

They are mementoes from my affair.  I remember the purchase, the rush of emotion and adrenaline.  The nervousness.  My heart beating faster, bowels just on the verge of giving out.  Each purchase made me feel like I was twelve again, walking into my mother's den.

They soothe me, like Catcher in the Rye soothes sick fucking psychos that have never read a good book.

I, however, am not a psycho.  I am just a fan that has oddball fantasies of me macking on a Mac.  Oh wait... you told me to insert my DISC?  Crap.

The most up to date stuff I have are two MacBook Pro laptops and my beloved iGrope.  The wife hates that fucking thing, unless she's playing on it.  Then it all seems to turn around, doesn't it?

It's understandable because I've been secretly cheating on her all these years.  My love is torn in two.  I mean, sure, she has the eternal soul, but Steve... Steve will always have a little piece of me too.  Not to mention all that bloody fucking money.

Well, last night, he got a little piece of my wife.  What a two-timing asshole!

We went over to the big mall by our house, as I had a shirt that I needed to exchange from Christmas.  Yes, Chrstmas goddamn it!  I know, I know... you're all shaking your head from all high, but you don't know how big of a pain it is to actually plan that whole thing.  

First, you have to think, 'I'm going to the mall (not just a particular store) to get something.'  Then you have to think, 'Will I get anything else there?'  THEN, you have to switch to, 'Do I need to do anything else there?'

It's that question that fucks me up all the time.  I never get to it.

Anyhoo... the wife gets the shirt idea in her head, and I play along.  It's about time, right?

We go to the mall.  As soon as we step in, she dives into a restaurant and puts our name in for an hour from now.

"Babe?" I asked.  I call her babe.  It's what I do.

"Babe?" I asked again.  She's partly deaf.  She turned.  

"What the fuck are we going to do for an hour?"  I was stymied.  At the same time, I got an idea.  I remembered the email I got.  I remembered going to the Apple website to see the tutorial.  I got half a stiffie.

We exchanged the shirt, did a little bit of clothes shopping, and headed down the mall.  I told her that we NEEDED to go into the Apple store.  I wanted to see if it was in there yet.

We walked up to the iPod section and looked around, only to find the older generation iPod Shuffle.  Yeah, great.  It's got purty colors and it's small and OMG and all that bull puckey.  Where's the new shit?

"Maybe I should get one of these for working out," the wife said.  It's only $69 for 500 songs, which is more than enough for me. "And it would be better than using the big one [3rd gen]."

"We should ask when it's coming in, and what the price is going to be" I said.  This is a rare statement from me as I HATE asking people for anything... especially directions.  I also hate looking for people to ask.  HATE!

Why is it that when I'm just browsing people are always coming up to ask if they can help while when I want someone they are never around?  I mean Jesus Fucking Christ on a Popsicle Stick!

The Mac folks are all wearing brightly colored shirts.  Construction Cone Orange.  Smurf Blue.  You can't miss these fucking guys.  All of them were busy, and none of them were looking for people to help.  Except the greeters.  They were talking to each other... of course.

So, we walked up to them and asked about the next gen Shuffle, and the guy's eyes became saucers as he leaned forward.  "We have them in the back," he smiled slyly.  "Oh, we have them."  They hadn't even had a chance to put the fucking things on display.

He was twelve again.

"Wait here," he said as he shot off to the back.  He raced back with two small plastic cases with the new Shuffle inside.  One was silver, one was black.  They were both beautiful.  They were both the size of a data suppository.  Maybe even smaller.

Rae's eyes became saucers.  This is unusual for her, as she's not a techie and never has been.  She's had a secondhand lifestyle, getting my cast-offs as I get new shit.  It's been a happy existence for her.  Up until now, that is.

She was twelve again.  If only for a moment. 

All she said after that was, "Black," and whipped out her credit card.  After that, her brain was mush.  After that, her smile shot back the light from her soul.  She was finally first on the block to have a piece of technology, and she loved it.

It's 4GB, for the same price as the 2GB version of the older, more colorful version.  Its controls are on the ear buds, not the body.  The whole thing weighs about the same as a butterfly.  It weighs the same as a hummingbird in flight.

We walked out of that store, and the wife's head was held high.  She looked down on other people.  She's six feet tall, so that's at least somewhat normal.  But there was something different about her.  She was almost giddy.

We went to dinner, Rae telling the waitress all about the new purchase.  The waitress, after writing her name upside down on the table with two crayons, looked down and said that she wouldn't even think it was anything by looking at it.  I just kept staring at the large gap between her huge teeth as I drank from my wine glass.  Where's my Pasta Roni, beeotch?

It was at that point I lost my semi.

It wasn't the gap between her Chicklets either, nor was it the lack of food at the table.  It was the fact that I had been so excited for someone else to get high off the fumes of the Mac store.  I was actually encouraging her to pay me back for all those years I cheated on her.  Fuck.

I wanted Steve and all of his pleasure toys for myself (until I was bored with them, that is), and now the wife was horning in on my action!  

The times, they are a changin'.  Thanks for that one, Obama.  And I thought you were a pretty good guy up until now, asshole.

[editor's note: There may be more coming on this stupid fucking story.  We've loaded up the little thing with a bunch of tunes, but don't know anything about performance of this techie version of the pocket rocket.]