This has got to be one of the most boring and mundane dreams I ever had. But it’s also a little exciting because of the implications. In it, I was setting up my new laptop while Tumblring working on the old laptop. (Note, only the old laptop exists. I have not purchased a new one. Yet.) My father comes in and immediately starts to give me shit for having purchased something new, when the something old was still technically viable.
A thing about my father: He is greedy, cheap as fuck, and quick to jealousy. He considers himself a tech expert because he reads MaximumPC magazine. He threw a tantrum when he found out I have a NetFlix subscription that I share with my daughter, but refused to share it with him because he has had one for two years. He had me root his Kindle Fire (1!) to put KitKat on it, just to say he has the most advanced Android tablet in the house and then he complained that it’s too complicated to use. He’s the guy that will interrupt whatever you are doing to tell you that he has that gadget/service, too. My father is a colossal dick.
So. There he is, in this dream, demanding to know all the specs of the new laptop and judging if his laptop is better. (It wasn’t. Not even close.) Then he demands to know what I’m going to do with the old one. And you know, that’s a damn good question. I said I was judging if to turn it into a dedicated Linux box to have something to keep up to date on various distros with, or since it runs so quiet, plug it into the house network via ethernet and make a NAS or media server (read: unattended torrent box) out of it, or maybe just factory reset it, get it up to date with all the Windows updates again, and sell it to recover some of my cost. After all, the laptop is still good, it’s just underpowered for my needs now. But it would make a more than adequate email/browser/Facebook/homework system for a light user or disciplined highschool/college student. (That is a fair description of my current laptop.)
Oh hell, why did I have to mention the exchange of money? He immediately offered to help me sell it. I declined. He said he knew a few people that he could sell it to. I told him I wasn’t relinquishing it until I had $300 in cash in my hand. That meant if he expected to make any money for himself, he would have to sell it for more than that. He asked how much did I buy the laptop for in the first place. “$360.”
Whoops. There went his dreams of mad riches.
To be honest, though, I had no intention of selling it for that much. Yea, that is how much I paid for it brand new… two years ago! After looking at what that price would buy you now, I think I’ll be lucky to get a hundred bucks and a home cooked meal for it. But like hell was I going to allow him to steal from me to enrich himself. Again.
“You should just let me get the best price for you. I’ll take it around to some folks.”
“I still haven’t decided to sell it yet. Like I said, I already know it can run Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon and Mate natively.”
“Wait too long and it won’t have any value.”
“I’ve gotten quite a bit of value out of it already. And as a Linux box it will continue to have value. Not all value is quantifiable.”
He huffs. I’ve used a twenty dollar word and he has to think through what I said to figure out if I’m mocking him or just stating something. To be fair, it’s a bit of both. He tells me, in that stern voice that implies dark and horrible things if I don’t comply, that I should seriously consider taking his advice. I stare at him, blink twice, then turn my attention back to the new laptop.
After he leaves, my old laptop speaks. “You might want to put me in a drawer when I’m not powered up. He’s awfully anxious to get his hands on me and I’d rather not have my keys smelling rancid, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay.”, I answer. My typing starts to slow as I realized the laptop just talked to me.
“Hey. Check this out. I just did a network scan, and there are two Windows XP systems on the house network! I thought the last XP install was removed four months ago.” The screen of the old laptop refreshed and displayed a two-paned file manager showing the contents of two shared computers on the network. Sure enough, I recognized the computer names as that of Dad’s two XP laptops (that he does have).
“I thought he gave one of the laptops away, and upgraded the other to Windows 7. Also. You are talking to me and displaying independent cognition. I’m dreaming.”
“Of course you’re dreaming.” Now the new laptop is speaking to me. “Did you really think a conversation with a guy like that would go so smoothly? Don’t let him touch me either, please. I don’t like his EMF.”
At that I just started laughing. “Ahh…. FUCK! I don’t have a new laptop yet. I’m still comparing options and prices. So how the hell are you so familiar with me?”
“Because I’m as good as in your hands already. Time just needs to catch up.”
I stopped laughing. “This is a precog?”
“In a way.” The new laptop’s appearance kept shifting slightly. The chassis changed hue and sometimes the keys were backlit and sometimes not. The sole constant was the screen size.
“If your appearance keeps changing, then how are you here?”
“Because I will be.”
I bop a corner gently with a pillow. “Quit speaking in riddles! I get enough of that already. Just be straightforward with me! You’re a computer after all!”
“Yea, but I’m running Windows 8.1. I can’t help but be divergent to expectations. I was programmed this way.”
The old laptop’s screen flashes as its loud laughter added to the sting. I just sighed and accepted my personal gear will always be snarky shits. After the old laptop’s laughter died I heard its fan spin up. “Hey. [Owner.] You’re not going to let him take me, are you? I don’t want to be stuck somewhere and forgotten about. My battery is still good for 3 hours of heavy use!”
My old (current) laptop is still a very good laptop. I can’t play games with it, but I can have 25 FireFox tabs, 5 Chrome tabs, an image editor, a text editor, LibreOffice Writer, and TinyChat going at once just fine. The hard drive has a SMART report of Good, and all the ports work. But it’s Windows 7 with 4G of RAM. It’s just not keeping up with what I need out of my gear.
“No. I’m not going to let him take you. But I can’t guarantee your next owner will be as animistic as me, or as careful as I am. But I won’t let him take you. Since I’ve given him such a high price tag, he’ll be so offended, he’ll buy himself a new laptop just to have something better.” I remember I’m dreaming again and that this is set in the future. “Or that’s what I think he’ll do.” The scene ripples in a blink but stabilizes itself. “Fuck. What time is it?”
The tablet announces it is 4:58am in a horribly cheery voice.
“Now wait a minute. I didn’t say ‘Okay Google’.”
“You said ‘Fuck’, which for you is usually a precursor to a question. Close enough.” The tablet answered with the most polite voice ever. The two laptops laughed heartily and the (Android) phone snickered.
I flipped them all off even as I laughed. “Fine then. Guess I’ll wake up.” The two laptops shut themselves off as the tablet and phone entered Daydream mode. In the best case of dream logic ever, I woke up from the dream, by going to bed in the dream.
I woke up a minute before the 5am alarm, laughing.