Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Meanwhile, in Modern Times...
Today's lesson is that the world will in fact go on even though I have no computer or internet connection. Thanks to the awesome new laptop that arrived for me today, I am happy to report that I am back in the 21st century and catching up on two days worth of e-mail.
I also found a new subset of the population to loathe. Before today it was easy to pour haterade on airlines, doctors' waiting room and cable guys. I would like to add UPS guys to that esteem list. Dell computers was nice enough to let me know that my new machine would be arriving today and that I would have to sign for it. After a quick phone call to UPS I found that my window for its arrival was between 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM. Yes, 10 hours.
What does one do in a basement apartment for 10 hours with no computer or internet connection? I dashed to the bank in the morning, but after that there was little else to do but clean. And so I did just that.
While I waited...and waited..and waited...for the UPS guy to show up, I washed and dried all my laundry. I scrubbed my bathroom. I pruned my closet and made bags for Goodwill. I even got on my hands and knees and cleaned the bottom of the closet where the dust bunnies were hanging out. Over the course of the day I ate nothing but a large coffee, two bananas, a can of tuna and a petit four. I didn't know when Mr. UPS guy was coming, so I could not leave and get more rations. If I was not home when he came, I would have had to go to the shipping center in Tribeca to pick up my package, and it was too cold to go across town. Call me lazy.
I called UPS three times over the course of the day to get an ETA. In this age of cell phones, Blackberries and pagers, UPS claimed not to be able to find the driver. Bollocks.
After a few hours the cleaning fumes in my apartment were getting to me and I went outside for some air. Right at that moment, the UPS guy appeared.
"Yay!" I shouted. "You're here!" You would have thought he was Santa Clause.
As he leaned over to hand me the clipboard to sign, a large box from Dell started to slip off the cart and onto the sidwalk. Mr. UPS Guy caught it in time and saved my new laptop. Had he not, this would be an entirely different story.
After waiting six and half hours for UPS, I finally had my computer. I was starving, but fired up my new toy right away. And what a toy it is.
And not for nothing, but eating nothing for almost an entire day brings a sort of clarity I haven't felt in a while. Maybe all those anorexic models are onto something.
