The living-on-borrowed-time giveaway

So they took my computer away from me.

What's funny is that I am in many ways the most technologically stunted person in my entire county. It's Los Angeles County. There are ten-year-olds with more equipment and savvy than I have.

I can't, as a kind reader suggested, check out new "apps" for my phone because so far as I know, my phone doesn't have any apps because my phone is several years old and I refuse to give it up. I already don't understand this one. Even if I had the money for a new one, I don't see the point in getting something that I'll understand even less.

My address book is made of paper and missing a cover.

I've never texted in my life.

I don't know what a blackberry is unless you're talking about the fruit.

This blog is as boring, visually, as it is because this is what someone else set up for me and I don't know how to put nifty pictures and stuff on it.

I do have an iPod and was ridiculously excited, marching around the house singing about the fact that I now had the POWER, because after owning the thing for months, I finally learned how to plug it into my computer, pick the stuff I wanted to load onto it, and sync it. Before that, I'd hand it to my husband with very explicit instructions as to what audiobook or comedy album I wanted to listen to now. If I own a CD and want to hear it via my iPod, guess who I hand it to?

So the idea of being without a computer horrified me partly because although I have a love/hate relationship with email, I am rather in the habit of checking it often. Mostly, though, I hated the idea of not being able to write. I do work longhand, but it's frustrating because I can type so much more quickly, and hitting "delete" is so much tidier than all those lines and carets my paper pages always end up being covered with.

I was feeling pretty fidgety when, an hour after they'd left with my darling laptop, the Y-chromosomes called home to report.

"WELL?" I asked.

Given what our luck has been this summer -- the car losing its air conditioning abilities and charging a reasonable but significant ransom for them right before the only heat we've had all season kicked in, the other computer needing replacing -- I almost didn't want to hear the answer to that question.

It actually turned out to be pretty good news.

The lovely nerds over at the Apple Genius Bar (and if you don't know what a compliment I'm paying by calling someone a nerd, you haven't been listening) have never been anything but all things good and beautiful so far as our needs are concerned. They go above and beyond, they really do.

My super drive needs replacing. They didn't have one. So they wrote up a work authorization, handed it and my computer to my husband, and told him that he could bring them both back in when they got the part in stock.

I love that they didn't just say, "Okay, thanks, we'll call you when this is fixed," and then leave my computer moping around, no use to anyone, while they waited for the necessary part to come in. They could have. They didn't. I have the use of my computer until they call. That's Christmas in August, is what that is.

"They're required to tell people it'll take five to seven days to do this kind of repair," my husband added. "But she told me that it'll probably be more like one or two."

Which is another present under the tree. Still not looking forward to that day or two, but I take what I can get when I can get it.

To celebrate, I thought I'd have a little spontaneous giveaway.

In my article about reading Darwin, I mention buying a paperback copy of The Origin of Species that included some supplementary material -- a good introduction, some footnotes, and other tidbits clearly aimed at readers of about high school age. The fact that I utterly failed to finish it is because this edition does have one fault: the fact that I'm an idiot.

So since I had to go in pursuit of way more footnotes, I thought that some reader who's perhaps a little brighter than I am might like this copy of Darwin's most famous work. It's a mass market copy, priced $6.95. The cover's fine, but you can tell that this book spent some time banging around in my purse.

I'll throw in a copy of the current "hooray for Darwin" issue of SHM to go with it. If you're already a subscriber and would like to enter, you could give the extra copy away to the library, or a friend, or some fundie you've been longing to horrify.

What I'll do is open up the drawing to anyone who posts between now and the time that Apple calls and tells me that it's time to start crying again. Right before I let them wrench my baby from my frantic grasp, I'll generate a random number and announce the winner, who can email me privately with his or her address, which I will receive as soon as I return to the happy planet of people who can check their email whenever they want.

Sound good?