Who's a slave for whom?

Have I introduced you to my computer before? No?

Meet Boy, an upgraded HP Pavilion 8874. He came to me, new-born, 5 years ago, looking as sleek as a panther. My parents pampered him to hell. Bought him a nice Sitoca computer table to be his pedestal, gave him an expensive HP psc 750 as a pet, paid a little more for an f50 LCD screen, including an Intel webcam and a Sony sound system!. About 2 years ago, he fell really ill. My uncle, who's a computer expert, operated on him and gave him a new disk drive and another DVD drive - so he actually has 2 hearts!

So how did I know he was a boy? No naughty jokes here. I just knew it because he has an ego as large as any male - human, animal and Greek Gods included. Whenever he performs a task especially well, like for example, starting up very promptly, or processing really efficiently, we have to make sure he knows we appreciate it. "Good Boy!" or "Clever Boy" or "Wow, what a gorgeous Boy"... you name it, we've said it. Just so it would continue being in good spirits.

Sometimes we overwork him, downloading too many things, or making him do too many commands at the same time, so he pouts and refuse to power up. Then we'll have to sayang him, stroke the CPU (where all the ego's at), plead with him and promise him that we delete some files to take the load off him... Last month, his pet (the all in one HP psc) died. We tried to remove him and replace him with an Epson CX3500. Boy seemed alright at first, never complained. But after 2 nights, Boy started to throw tantrums. He hanged on me, sometimes even refused to start up and emitted angry sounds from the CPU. I even uninstalled the Epson but he still refused to budge. I think he missed his old pet, but still? He didn't have to act like A Spoilt Brat.

I had called my uncle the computer expert down to have a look at him. To embarrass me, Boy worked perfectly fine when my uncle switched him on! My uncle gave me a skeptical look and said, "Hmm, he looks pretty healthy to me. Well, he IS getting on a little and it's about time he," - at this point he lowers his voice - "you know.. Other than that, some programs are taking up some space, but it shouldn't be much of a problem." I turned slitty eyes at Boy and accused him of acting like a child. At that point, he stuck out his CD-drive tongue at me. I ignored him and saw my uncle to the door - a wasted trip.

We'll see how long it takes for Boy to act up on me again. I know as long as the problem is not resolved and he's taken under my wing, Boy will just find the most importune time to faint on me.