I’m pretty sure I heard it happen but didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I probably thought something shifted and fell at the bottom of the pile. Then, today, I saw what actually happened.

Today was “tame the hoard” day and the goal was to tackle the pile of old laptop computers that has begun to stack up. I started with the oldest. Although it is desperately outdated, it has the best keyboard of any computer I own and because of that I’ve held on to it. I installed Linux on it to prevent the “XP is dead. XP is dead. The world is less safe because you are using XP.  XP is dead. You are killing the world” messages I kept getting.

Unfortunately, the flavor of Linux I installed (note to nerds: yes, I know it’s supposed to be “GNU/Linux” so there) didn’t play nice with my wifi and I decided to scrap the computer. (Although I may have to resurrect it temporarily. Long story.) I pulled out the memory and the hard drive and set the rest aside.

Then I took out my second oldest laptop and set it on the desk and was surprised when it wouldn’t sit flat. I thought I might have lost a rubber foot but then realized the battery pack had swollen as one of the batteries dies. I remember, not so long ago, hearing some funny noises in the variety room, but I thought it was just something falling, not a battery pack trying to explode. I removed the battery pack and am now trying to figure out what to do with it.  The devil over my left shoulder wants to put it in the sun for a few days to see what happens. The devil over my right shoulder suspects that might be a bad idea.

The last computer, a Samsung netbook a friend passed to me for free, is still working fine. At least it is for now.

The next problem is my desktop computer. It is also starting to show its age. It’s old school enough to have DVD drive and old enough that the drive only opens when it damned well feels like it and then it lectures about how when it was my age it didn’t have fancy-schmancy optical drives it had a cassette drive that took six weeks to load one simple game and it was happy to play that game. I felt embarrassed for it as I’m 49 and it will never actually reach my age. (Yes, that’s right, I spent the afternoon arguing with a senile computer. So what?)

The decision now is to repair or replace. The truth is the deciding factor isn’t the money, it’s the hassle.