Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Confession ( petty marital gripe)

I hate sharing my computer. There. I've said it. I have no idea why I'm so territorial about it, but I am. It might have something to do with the fact that all I have to do is leave my seat to get a cup of coffee or answer a child's question and my husband slides in, changed to his desktop and proceeds to surf or check his e-mail. When I return I have to roust him and return to mine. This can take a few minutes to an hour, depending on how determined he is to stay. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it irritates me no end. That and sometimes it's just nice to come back and find things where I left them. He knows all this by the way.

A couple of years ago, in self-defense, I gave him his own desktop and password protected mine. This gave me some measure of privacy and it kept him from reading my e-mail or whatever story I had in progress. My e-mail is fairly boring; it's made up of exchanges with a handful of friends and a couple of other writers, a few dozen forwards a day, and work stuff, but it's mine, damn it, and in a houseful of men, where I share everything but my bras (etc) and a few pairs of fuzzy pink socks, having something that just belongs to me is not a small thing.

A year ago, I set him up with a computer back in our bedroom, but he prefers mine. I don't know if it's the location or the fact that mine is faster. He insisted he didn't want his own and he almost never used it; I finally gave it to my computerless younger sister last week. I think the next step is to wait for money to get better (???), upgrade my system and give him this one, though I again run into where to place it.

Maybe a bait and switch is in order (I have an older dog who does this to get the other dogs to drop their bones so she can rush in and take them). I'll move this one back to our room and pretend to use it,then go off to do something. Then when he rushes back there, I'll settle down at the new one and use it. Yeah. That's what I'll do . . .

4 comments:

Scotty said...

Hehe, I hear that; I have the same problem with my kids at times.

*clears throat*

Okay kiddies, listen up and listen good. This is my computer; I paid for it, you guys clog it up with endless downloads of music and other paraphernalia while I maintain it via endless driver and security updates, virus, malware, spyware checks, defragmentation of the hard drives and peripheral upgrades. Therefore, I will use the computer when I choose to use it and not according to some arbitrary timescale or sliding scale of importance that you set (homework being the exception to that rule). Any further grumblings from you lot will see me expand my administrator scope of duties to deleting all other accounts but my own and setting a password that I will have to input if I decide you've earned the privilege of using this PC for your own purposes for a limited span of time. No amount of glaring, eye-rolling, muttering under the breath or slamming of bedroom doors will alter that privilege in any way except to maybe lengthen the period of time before you're next granted said privilege. Do we understand each other?

[insert moody silence here]

Sorry, what was that?

Yes, Dad!

Ah, we agree then...

Hehehehe.

Mary O. Paddock said...

Hi Scotty,

LOL. Great speech. Did it work? If so, can I borrow it?

I am cranky about this. He's not really the problem, my feeling of invaded space is.

Scotty said...

Yes, it worked, and borrow away, Mary. :-)

Judy said...

If you can, let him have your desktop and buy yourself a laptop. Or buy him a laptop. Then he can be in the same room with you, if that's one of the issues, and you can both be online at the same time. No more fusses.