HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well it only took ALL DAY to log into Blogger ... aaaaaaaaaaaargh! So much for the New Year resolution to blog more often!

The old pc, I fear, is dead as a dodo or at least heading that way. Now I need to make some decisions. Shall I call in the ever helpful Mr Fixit to rid the dammed thing of whatever is bothering it, buy a new monitor that doesn't decide at a moments notice that it's "tired" and wants to sleep ... or do I just go buy something sparkly and new with all the whistles and stops??

The whole thing just pisses me off a little. A couple of days ago I went out, with bankcard at the ready, to buy a new monitor and a new battery pack for this laptop.

The first shop, which advertises customer service second to none, was like the Marie Celeste... at least to those of us of a "certain age". The Madcow Brother & I tried, honest we did, to snare ourselves a little shop assistant but to no avail. Sweet young things in pretty little uniforms wafted around the store oblivious to all our arm waving, shrieking and trip wires. No, they were on important business that seemed to involve other pretty young things wearing a different kind of uniform (body piercings, belts pretending to be skirts and tops that could possibly have been fashioned out of two very small hankies). Apparently two grumpy old bastards throwing wads of cash on the floor in a feeble attempt to lure them to the IPod department where the Madcow Brother wished to PURCHASE WITH CASH was just too silly for words. Either that or we had suddenly become invisible and nobody had the heart to tell us. Needless to say I didn't bother even looking at the monitors etc...sigh.

Being the hopeless romantics we are we headed for the next "Super Store". Here we made progress. Mmm. Sort of. If you think having your last shred of self confidence ground into the carpet is progress well then this was the store for you.

After three attempts to engage with The Bright Young Thing In A Uniform I realised where I was going wrong. I apparently had forgotten to pin on my penis that morning. Silly me. As I jumped up and down in the aisle, waving my bankcard and wads of cash like a demented cheerleader and yelling "I want to buy something, I want to spend money", TBYTIAU approached every male in the store, the carpark, the nearby shopping mall all in a desperate attempt to avoid having to serve me. Silly boy. Did he really think a mother would give up that easily? I've made 20-somethings clean their rooms, eat their greens and pay their parking tickets and some of them weren't even MY 20-somethings. He didn't stand a chance.

I did what any woman with half a brain would do. I hid behind a man. Literally! As TBYTIAU closed in on his prey, a rather ample middle aged man, I hid behind the aforementioned gentleman. When he trotted out the usual "no I'm just looking" I took my chance, leapt out from deep cover and clinging to the sleeve of TBYTIAU shrieked "But I want to buy!!!!!!"

Of course that was enough to piss off any self respecting BYTIAU - trapped by some demented virago - he immediately got an attack of "Eye Rolling & Terminal Sighing" which I believe is now a notifiable disease with the Health Department.

"NOBODY IN THE WORLD would ever want a monitor that wasn't a LCD Flatscreen, and OH MY GOD, you must have the oldest laptop in the world if thats the battery pack you want to replace ... oh it's only two years old?? You say that like it's a good thing. I don't OWN anything that's two years old."

He then dispatched me to "some other store" which sells "out of date" hardware. I didn't have the heart to even try and find it. God knows my pacemaker wouldn't have coped with the walk over there.

I think I'll buy a new pc online. At least I'll never have to talk to anyone.

PS. For your viewing pleasure (before the cataracts and glaucoma get ya!) The Madcow Xmas Decoration courtesy of Jules which is just divine.