So I took my laptop in to Future Shop for repair.

This is not something that I would do unless it needed something special, because I can give my laptop just about anything it needs. For example, when it gets too buggy to be certain of the safety of my files, too buggy for defrag, cleanup, and all the cleaning software my heart desires, I back up all my files and reload the operating system. Like I did just before I took it in.

But perhaps a little background.

When I bought my computer, in April 2005, it was last of the line and on sale, attached to a week-long promotion that promised free warranty coverage for two years. This would normally cost two hundred dollars extra, so I took it. I paid the extra fifty for the third year, as well. Bad move? Perhaps. Sucker? Time will tell. But I bought a $3100 unit for $2000, before tax, additional warranty, all the Norton I need, a nice carrying case, and a 520 meg keychain.

Let me explain their warranty, for those of you who do not know of this, shall we say, "Shop of da Future." (Note to self- you are not Strongbad.) When one buys from them a computer with a warranty on it, one is guaranteed certain things: warranty repair, for one, and others, for others. An example of others would be that if the computer has three major repairs under warranty, they will replace the unit. If, before the third repair, it has a major repair whose cost is more than said unit, they will replace said unit before said unit has the chance to say again. In either case, if the unit cannot be replaced with an identical item, it will be replaced with an item one step up.

So the fifty I spent on warranty would be going toward the right place, I think.

Moving in a forward-type direction, my computer, upon being taken out of the box, had but two small functional issues.

The first was that when I let it sit for too long, and it went dark, as computers tend to do, it would not wake up. I'd poke it, I'd prod it, but it would not stir. I'd sing it songs and offer it cheerios, but to no avail. It was very sad. I cried. I had to hold the power button until all power lights went off. After I recovered from the trauma, I'd generally hit the power button to turn it back on, to do whatever it was I was going to do with it.

My computer, you see, has an inability to recover from the stasis known as "stand-by", which is apparently a state in which it becomes completely unhelpful. So I remedied this situation by never dealing with it. I changed up the settings so that it would go into hibernation mode upon time-out.

Hibernation(hy-bur-nay-she-on)
1.) To pass the winter in a dormant or torpid state.

When my computer times out into hibernation, it recovers at a moment's notice. So this issue was for me nothing more than a minor memory of a nuisance that foreboded dark times ahead.

The second issue was that it had the very odd habit of typing the letter "P", or, to be more precise, the letter "p". By comparison, not a major issue. I just had to pwatch my written material for those signs of minor revolt. I figured that by allowing this open protest, letting it release its discontent rather than letting it build to dangerous political levels, I was preventing the kind of unrest that could ultimately lead to more major rebellion, probably involving my square brackets.

With these two issues dealt with in ways I felt quite satisfactory, I was glad to have them out of the way in time for my computer to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that it had the wrong battery installed. When I hit the button that IBM cleverly substituted for Mac's "Okay", the computer promptly shut down. I wrote down the battery number it referred me to, and took it at once to Future Shop, where a repair technician was standing by to tell me that their warranty was useless to me, as the unit was too new, and he told me where to take it.

So I took it there, and they replaced the battery, and performed a search through their database for the serial number, where they found that the unit was not only previously owned, but had already received a motherboard transplant. Not only this, but its year-long manufacturer warranty would be up in September, a mere five months after I purchased it. Many people would have been pissed off at this development, but I am not most people. I am a vindictive bastard with a great deal of patience. So I laughed, knowing that my computer was indeed an investment of time and money, with an eventual return of what a supergeek might refer to as a +1 Laptop of Warranty.

So I took my little Frankenstein patient back to Future Shop to speak to the man responsible for selling it to me, and I made him aware of it, and I made him aware of my plan to wait it out. Though he showed genuine concern, I am certain he did not care.* So I took it home, and used it happily. I discovered, after a week of use, that it was not satisfied with this battery either. Rather than take it back again to satiate its desire to feast on the organs of other computers, I ignored it, and went on patiently, because batteries aren't covered under Future Shop's warranty. Clever bastards.

Allow for a couple of uneventful months, as I graduated, got a girlfriend, moved into a new apartment, took a weeklong trip through the Rockies, ascended from a dishwasher with a wage to a warehouse supervisor with a salary and benefits, got a car, and began to regularly maintain some website thing with some laptop that I was defragging and cleaning on almost a weekly basis.

I closed the lid on my computer one day, which it promptly recognized as the command from its lord and master to hibernate. I returned to it some time later, and opened it up, to find it obediently trying to obey my command to hibernate. This moment tugged at my consciousness, as though trying to make me aware of something, trying to waken some memory, some intention I'd had once.

Over the month of November, it began trying harder to jog my memory. It began to show defiance. Then one night, I told it to shut down, and then I closed the lid and plugged it in. I awoke the next morning, and found it shivering in the corner, with dried brown stains and a weak alibi. No, wait, I mean it was still plugged into the wall and the outside lights on the unit were still on.

"But Mark," you say, "are you sure you told it to shut down?"

"Silence!" I bark. "Never question me!"

You see, when I opened the lid, I was greeted with the screen that told me that windows was shutting down. I was glad that the screen is physically disabled when the lid is closed, because screen-burn is too simple a thing to catch me. Anyway, as it became more defiant and buggy, we return to the beginning of my little story, the part where I back up all my files on my keychain, and reload my operating system. I was particularly entertained by this part, because the moment the operating system was re-installed, my computer promptly informed me that it was not satisfied with its battery, and promptly shut down.

So I took it to Future Shop, with a little grin on my face and a big neon sign in my head that said "One down." I was glad at this: I was getting sick of the sign that said, "Here, there be dragons."

I happily informed the guy at the repair counter of my situation. I listed its problems: stand-by; battery discontent; trouble complying; and the letter "p". He told me that it sounded like a motherboard problem. I explained to him that manufacturer's warranty expired in September, and that the battery and the motherboard had both been replaced in this unit already. He took it in and told me it should be ready in five days.

A week later, I called them. It was that same guy that answered the phone. He told me that it was on the outgoing shelf. I thought that was particularly well-mannered of it, so I asked him to test it before I went out of my way to get it. He was to turn it on and put it into stand-by. It was not ready.

The next day, I found a phone message from Roger, the Future Shop lead technician. He told me that there were some sectors of my hard drive that did not respond like they should, and that to fix my stand-by issue, he recommended a reload of my operating system, though that would not be covered under warranty. He went on to say that since the unit was still under manufacturer warranty, there was nothing more they could do.

I took a deep breath.

I called back when I got the message, but no one answered. They must all have been out for lunch. At 6pm. I called back at 8:30, and had a very interesting conversation with another technician, who very helpfully told me that one of the guys had noted in the paperwork that the laptop had the wrong battery. When he told me that no, that wasn't mentioned anywhere in the paperwork, I asked him what was written about its condition. Apparently, the little wonder that took it in had dutifully written that it was "having trouble recovering from hibernation." Turns out that was all he had written.

After the new guy on the phone jotted down all the symptoms that I'd explained when I'd dropped it off, and wrote down that the operating system had been reloaded... the day... before... and that the battery had been replaced, as well as the motherboard... and I calmly explained the impression Roger was under, regarding the manufacturer's warranty. On this point, this guy, whose name I do not know, began to explain that while it was under manufacturer's warranty, they weren't authorized to do anything major with it. As he was explaining this, I told him that Roger was wrong. Here's what my girlfriend heard, sitting beside me as I spoke on the phone:

"Roger was wrong. He was wrong. He was wrong. He was wrong. He was wrong... That's correct, it's not. The manufacturer, that's who."

He tried to argue that the purchase date was in April, but I agreed with him, which made it hard for him to argue. After we left this detail unresolved, he suggested my two options: take it to the local branch of the manufacturer, or have him send it to a different branch of the manufacturer. I opted not to take it out of their responsibility, so he agreed to send it away. When the question of the expiration of said warranty comes into play, it will become interesting. It is only a shame that I will not be there to see it. One of two things will happen now, though. Either between the two of them, my computer will come back to me repaired; or between the two of them, my laptop will be replaced.

Let them argue about it. Between the two of them, someone's got to take some responsibility. p

*Yes, I know what I said.