I want to buy a software program that, when run, causes my computer to suffer grievously, though not permanently. When my screen freezes or turns blue, I want a special button I can push to make the CPU start squealing like a motherboard.



I want a device that stores an electrical charge in my telephone. For every minute I spend on hold waiting for technical support to answer, the charge would increase in intensity. When the guy from tech support finally answers, the electrical bolt of energy would be discharged into him. This should not affect my ability to hear whats going on at the other end of the line, of course. And a special function would allow the volts to double every time a tape-recorded message urges me to continue holding. Your call is important to us, the caressing voice always claims.



I want my phone to be outfitted with a translation program which will reconstitute this irritating reminder into the truth: Actually, we already have your money, so we couldnt care less. Our technical support department consists of two college kids, both of whom are busy playing Doom. Eventually, one of them will come on the line, but it will be the one who doesnt speak English.



I want my modem to sense when my PC has committed an illegal function and issue a warrant to arrest Bill Gates. When my system crashes and I lose a file that has taken me more than an hour to create, I want someone from the computer company to come out and retype it for me. I dont understand why new, upgraded software creates files that cannot be read by old, reliable software with the same name. Is there no one in the computer industry who has noticed that word processor files all look alike once they are open? Why cant 6.0 recognize a 7.0 file? Its all just words, isnt it?



There should be a rule that when software engineers buy a new car, their old cars should cease to function. If they dont understand why this is happening, they should call me and I will explain it to them.



How come when my computer catches a virus, Im the one who misses work? I want to know why my printer always jams on the last piece of paper or the last sheet of checks. When this happens, it makes me want to put sandpaper into the manual feed and print the Emancipation Proclamation.



I am really tired of hearing about all the things that happened with Y2K. Why didnt anybody ever ask these computer programmers how in the world they didnt know the year 2000 would follow the year 1999? Software engineers are supposed to be pretty bright people – what did they need – a memo or something? I bought a program that was supposed to tell me if my computer files are Y2K-compliant. The program wouldnt work because – get this – my CD-ROM player is too old (I bought it 34 months ago). The manufacturer doesnt sell an updated driver. Thus, to find out if my computer is Y2K-compliant, I need to buy another computer.



I want to know what good is a Web search engine that returns 324,909,188 matches to my keyword. Thats like saying, Good news, weve located the product you want. Its on Earth.



I want to know why, when I had a tiny hard drive, my operating system was virtually crash-proof and took up so little space. My new operating system is five times the size of my original hard drive. With every upgrade, it seems to grow 75 percent. Thats as if every time your mother-in-law came to visit she weighed another 500 pounds.



Now Ive found out that my PC no longer recognizes my floppy drive! How could they not recognize each other? They live together in the same little tower!



Please understand, I dont hate my computer…I just want to hurt it every once in a while!