R.I.P. my Beloved Inanimate Object

Yesterday I suffered a tragic loss which not only affects me on an oddly emotional level, but even impacts, dramatically and detrimentally, my productivity.

I didn't have my iPod stolen or drop my iPhone in the toilet, largely because I don't own anything that slick or that expensive.

No, it was worse than that.

My $5 goodwill laptop mini-mouse just died.

and I'm useless without it.

The object in question was acquired some 4 years ago on a whim while I was in the checkout line at my favorite San Antonio thrift store.  I had an old Dell laptop that I bought used off a former boss, and while I didn't use it often (can't function w/o wall power, at the time didn't even have a functional wireless or ethernet card), I saw a beat-up-but-still-in-its-original-package GE GE HO-97988 peering back at me with a pair of abused yet friendly eyes (ok, buttons).  

"What the heck, it's just $5!"

I was pleasantly surprised when it actually turned on, the USB-supplied power lighting it up with a friendly blue glow as the red optical laser radiated through its semi-transparent casing.  The quick-wind cable was brilliant and smoothly-operating, and I quickly found that its unusual circular (rather than standard "mouse") design was exceedingly comfortable.  

Most mini-mice just take the original mouse shape (designed to fit your entire hand) and then shrink it.  What sense does that make?  Using a laptop doesn't make your hands magically smaller!  But my GE, with it's circular form, was wide enough to nestle comfortably between my fingers, with two raised and distinct buttons and a rubberized scroll wheel so that I could always click (or not click) distinctly and intentionally.

Within a few months, I had a new wireless card for the laptop and was hauling it with me regularly for work on the fly.  Aside from the obvious technical limitations, I was never much encouraged to pursue the laptop because I found the fingerpad to be such a cumbersome interface, especially for layout and graphic design (which I was doing a good bit of).  But not with my new mousey.

I could sit anywhere (within 6 ft. of a power plug), put the laptop on - say it - my lap, and roll mousey giddily along my jeans, the couch seat, notebooks, whatever.  It worked everywhere, and it singularly transformed my ability to work anywhere.

For the past 4 years I've remained Primarily a desktop guy.  But the laptop gave me a degree of freedom not unlike getting my first car, and while it came with analogous mechanical difficulties, that didn't dissuade me from taking advantage of those freedoms.

Now in New York, my desktop is still the center of my infoverse, but Home is not where the work gets done.  I have to be mobile, working long hours in classes and library back rooms.  I've come to depend on my junkly little laptop, and it's answered the challenge mightily in the twilight of its youth.

But yesterday my little mousey finally gave out.  I can still plug it in, and it sputters and wheezes, trying to hang in there for me, but it's time has simply passed.  The lights flicker and fade, only to re-ignite in desperate, but ultimately futile gasps at life.  Frankly, it's heart-wrenching to watch.

Still, the loss of a $5 computer accessory should not affect a human being all that much, but yet it has.  I can't work for more than 30 minutes at a stretch on my laptop before my hands and elbows cramp up, and my workload suffers as a result.

the solution is simple - get a new mini-mouse.  Hell, if it's that big a deal, get a couple just in case, right?

But my beloved GE HO-97988 has been out of production since 2003, and there's nothing like it on the market.  

  

Sure, 6 years later probably everything out there has better quality, longevity, response time (measured in nanoseconds, by the way), perhaps even ergonomics.  They certainly can be more colorful, but where's the character?  

We all have our quirks when it comes to the supposedly inanimate tools with which we interact and come to rely upon in our lives.  I'd like to simply blame Disney for making us think that every household appliance has a personality, but perhaps it would be more fair to admit that we as people are the ones making the effort to personify everything, from the sweaters we make our dogs wear to the adorable collections of cat-clocks, etc.  It is an odd characteristic of humanity, which when considered objectively even becomes rather creepy.  Who doesn't have a favorite pair of stinky old shoes, for example?  how weird is that!

So tomorrow I'm getting a new mini-mouse, tomorrow I get back to work.

Today I mourn.

Weber

::(lame) Texpatriot