Out of a sudden anxiety, I decided to go to the campus helpdesk for help on my powerbook, even though I knew the answer already. It was really strange to be the \”customer\”, because for the last few years at Berkeley I always was the one who issued the solution, the only fix. Every time a resident came to me with a computer problem, I could determine a solution within minutes. With this, I faked a sad, serious emotional state when I pronouced a computer dead. That the hard drive was unreachable.

So I was slightly surprised when I had two people stare at me as I told them the troubled history of my powerbook. They seemed to frown in concern as I described how Eris kept freezing over and over again. They even said \”awwww\” as I described my previous reformat. Then suddenly another consultant came along. He quickly listened to a few symptoms I described. He pronouced the hard drive dead and quickly whisked away to his cubicle. Just like I would have.