Silly, but true - a retropost

(This actually happened a few weeks ago.  I can laugh at it now because it's over.)

I came back from a meeting to find a tiny bug on my screen.  I flicked it, but it didn’t move.  Why?  Because it was beneath the glass of my monitor.  I had to watch it crawl – up, down, across, along the edge.  I called IT, 

“This is going to sound weird, but um, there’s a bug in my computer and I can see it crawling around, but it’s beneath the screen so I can’t kill it.”  

Silence.  

“I was wondering if I should use some compressed air or something; I think it must have gotten in there through the speaker holes.”

“Well, uh…” 

He’s obviously struggling to find a response.  I put him out of his misery.“It’s not really affecting my work.” That’s a lie.  I was totally losing my shit as this thing crawled across my word documents and excel spreadsheets and NY Times homepage. 

“Well, there’s nothing we can really do.  What kind of computer do you have?”

“An all-in-one.”

“If any more show up, we can replace the entire unit.  Definitely call back if you see any more.”

“Okay.  I’m sure this is the weirdest thing you’ve heard all day.”

“Yep.”  

He laughs to make me feel less lame.  Thank you, IT Guy.  I hang up the phone convinced that this is karmic payback for the innumerous and terrible puns that I have tossed about with reckless abandon.  I changed my desktop wall paper, which was a super focused and close cropped photo of a flower petal.  (Do I look like I’m kidding?)  I opted for a black and white landscape shot with a few strong lightning bolts in the middle.  If this little nuisance was going to traipse around on my screen, I didn’t have to sit there and bare witness.  Of course when I open anything that wasn’t a predominantly black screen – there it was!

I haven’t seen the little bugger all day.  I guess it’s gone, as quickly, quietly and uneventfully as it had come.  I couldn’t be happier.  In the future, I’ll be more sparing with my bad puns, but I’m tucking this experience away for a time when I am old, quirky and have to be tolerated.  Then I will turn to the young’uns and say, “Ask me about the time my computer had a bug.”