The first sticker that I put on the back of my laptop was a Voodoo Donuts sticker from Portland. Then I put a Vans sneakers sticker on it, then a Magnet Theater sticker. After that, stickers from a sticker book I got in Paris. My laptop is tattooed like a sailor.

I wouldn’t have done that if it were a new computer.

I got my computer in 2012 but it’s the 2011 model. Apple stores don’t even fix them anymore. I had to take it to an independent place in Park Slope the last time it broke. The last time.

I was raised to use any kind of appliance until it broke, then and only then would we get another. When the knob fell off our TV, we turned the nub that remained with pliers. The gas gauge on our Ford Taurus broke and we never fixed it, just estimated the amount of gas based on trip miles. (We only got stranded on the highway once.)

When I got my computer in 2012, it was amazing. It was pristine and fast and had the latest operating system. Now it feels like a cinder block in my backpack. Some of the letters have worn off the keyboard (apparently I hit them pretty hard). The heels of my hands have left permanent marks beneath the keys on either side of the trackpad. The screen is permanently dusty.

I’m writing this on my phone right now because my computer won’t turn on. It makes the Apple start up noise and then… nothing. It won’t even start up in safe mode. I’ll take it to the shop again but it will probably be to make sure that I can get files off of it. I think that my computer has reached the end.

I left my last real full time job in 2014 to go freelance. I used my computer every day. I used it for job searches and resumes and Lynda.com courses. I used it as my main computer at three different contract jobs.

I created this blog’s theme and wrote the vast majority of its posts on my computer.

I’ve cursed my computer. For a month or two the internet card would internally disconnect any time the computer was jostled. I had to use a 25 foot ethernet cable so I could move around my apartment with it.

The hard drive has been replaced as have a number of other parts that I forget.

I relied on my computer as my key to any source of income. My computer has witnessed me at my worst, stressed over some web dev problem that I was working on alone in my kitchen whose solution I had inflated to represent my entire self worth. It weathered the storm surprisingly well.

I have a newer model at my full time job now. It’s smaller, faster, and lighter. I’ll get by without my computer here at home. Eventually, I’ll get a new one the way that people replace a dead pet with the same breed right after the first one dies. The new one will be sleek and new and fast and have the latest operating system and in about 5 years, it will seem slow and old and it will stop working.

It was the dream of Ada Lovelace and Steve Jobs (I think) for technology to augment human intelligence, not replace it with AI. I’ve had the urge to reach for my computer several times since getting home, forgetting that it won’t turn on. My life and my data are on my computer and I rely on it so much that the line between those two things gets far too blurry.

The robots haven’t taken over but damn have I been through a lot with this dumb machine.