Humor: Computer Antivirus Protection!

First off, let me admit I'm a yesteryear technology buff. I actually know how to set the timer on the VCR. Woops, I guess they're called DVD players now. Up until recently I used the computer at my tailor-shop to print up bills and to record all that god-awful paperwork. (As far as I was concerned, a waste of hours, just to determine how much money I had to give away in taxes.) Also whenever something looked funny on the screen I had my now-away-at-college-daughter to fix my mess-ups.

Coming home after the holidays from my daughter and Son-in-laws naturally the first thing I had to do was to turn on the computer (I learned that all by myself). Horror of horrors "Your Norton AntiVirus Protection is about to expire..." shows up on the screen. All I wanted was to get to Hubpages, is that too much to ask...? What to do? All my Computer-Gurus (my children) were away, only reachable by crackly cell phones. What to do?

Since I'm by myself now and the dogs are not obliging, I've started giving myself little pep-talks.... "You can do this...How hard can it be? It's just clicking a little button here and another over there...right? It's not as if I have to reprogram the whole computer...right? You can do this...it should be easy"

As that little word slipped out of my mouth 'easy' I knew I had cursed the whole operation. The alternative now was to turn off the computer (I'm still having a little problem with that concept, in my self studies) and wait for my Son, a week or so. What a choice but 'Hubland' can't wait that long; 'Hubland' needs my opinions and comments; the sacrifice has to be made so onward was the obvious choice.

• Norton: Click her to renew
• Me: Here? okay "click"
• Norton: three choices: 1) for 49.98 renew 2) for 54.98 extra protection 3) for 59.99 'Norton 360' overall protection (I assume this is good for viruses, colds and sexually transmitted computer bugs etc.)
• Me: Only the best for my computer 'Norton 360' "click"
• Norton: For extra savings let Norton give your computer a tune-up...we will clean out unused blah blah blah...will speed up...
• Me: I understand tune-up, clean out makes good sense, speed up? now we're talking "click"
• Norton: enter credit card # etc
• Me: hesitantly xxxxxx "click"
• Norton: Please wait 'Symantec' trying to upload
• Me: Who the hell is "Symantec'? What have I done?
• Norton: Please wait.............
• Me: ...an hour later waiting, as I was told, waiting....There is something wrong I just know it ...frantically searching for that Technical Support e-mail address or phone #
• Norton: Please wait......
• Me: dialing 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx
• Norton: Welcome to Norton blah blah blah How can we direct your call : renewal?, Norton 360 ?etc. that's the one... Please stay on the line, your call is important to us... (I'm sure it's more important to me than you...) the next available technical support expert will....
• Me: 45 minutes later "Haaaloo huu cun I hep yuu"? Me: "Pardon?" Really loud now "HUU CUN I HEP YUU"? Me: "How can you help me" ? "I purchased.....and it's stuck at the "....please wait screen" for more than an hour I explained. "Suury I no no wut yuu say I fuund sum-an ase" Me: "Pardon"? Really loud again "I FUUND SUM-AN ASE" I've been switched off. What the hell does fuund...Oh! 'I find some one else'... maybe?
• Norton: "Hello how can we help you?" Me: "Thank God you speak English" "Yes!!! How can we help you"? Me: "I purchased........stuck...two hours...."etc. "Well let me see what we can do...what was your order#? Who, what, where, when, how, why, shoe size?" "Now please type in wwxxxNorton.com/remote/xxxxx I will take over your screen now, Yes there it is"
• Me: What does he mean by "...he'll take over my screen" Oh Dear Lord! What have I done? The computer was taken over by a possessed cursor. The little arrow just flitted around here and there
• Norton over my phone speaker: "Hello are you still there"? "Yes" I croaked. "I will need to clean out a bunch of extras it should take an hour at the most then we will install and tune-up etc I will e-mail when I'm done". "Okay" I think I said.

Keeping a very worried eye on the computer screen which kept blinking, coming on line, going off line, removing Norton 360 now, reinstalling Norton 360 now, going off, coming on, blinking , flicking .....three hours later at around midnight the screen went blank then the white and yellow screen of death stating "...Please wait Symantec loading" an hour or so later poor old 'Symantec' is still begging for patience as he is still hand shuffling every tiny 101010101010101....I wonder why he just doesn't tell everyone to 'byte...'

So what do I do now? The expert told me he would e-mail when he was finished...3:40 AM. I guess I'll wait till morning to call back.

Impatiently I waited till just about 7:50 AM and then dialed the Help # again. Symantec was still wanting to upload. Norton: "How can we help you"?....What, where, when, hat size? I'm an old pro at letting the "expert" doing the driving now. "I have to clean-up...then reinstall etc. He would e-mail when he was done. I had heard all that already, I informed him. Your other Pall left me high and dry in the middle of the night. "I will definitely e-mail I promise" He tells me. The "cursed" cursor flitted and blinked etc. At 1:30 PM an e-mail stated the SHE will still be working on my computer but she is going for a quick lunch. 2:30 PM she's back. At 7:00PM an e-mail stating she was going off shift but Mickey from Sault Saint Marie was going to finish up. After removal and reinstalling of Norton 360 six times at 11:40 PM I got my squeaky clean, maybe a little groggy from all the operations, computer back.

Almost 50 hours later I would say I got my moneys worth. I was not told about the what, where, why, how, when etc. but from my shoe and hat size they, at Norton, were able to determine I was not overweight just under-tall.

As I said right at the start,(don't go back to reread what I said at the start) I'm confident I can do this, I don't need my 'Computer Gurus' it was easy.....(My hair, whatever I didn't pull out, is now snow-white) but I'm Antivirused, de-colded and no type of transferable disease will get near my computer and best of all I'm Speedy Bee for the next year.