- Just because I can fix my computer does not mean I want to fix yours. Read the help menu. That's what I did. Call IT. That's what they get paid for. But please stop asking me to map your network drive for the 5th time because you never wrote down how to do it the first 4 times I showed you. Don't keep asking me how to change your away message on Outlook everytime you take half a day of vacation.

just because I CAN fix computers -- and have put together my own and have built my own network -- doesn't mean I want to fix yours. OR your friends'. They pester me and my DW for help because we're both computer professionals. The latest indignity was someone who went to a computer show and bought a barebones machine. He then attempted to install Windows 98 on it. It wouldn't install -- well, it did, but the sound wouldn't work. Then he discovered the power-on BIOS settings and began playing with them to try and get the sound going. Then it wouldn't boot any more.

Needless to say, this computer needed way more help than I could give it. I gave it the old college try -- gamely referencing the computer manual written in pidgin English, discovering that he couldn't seem to locate all the literature he allegedly received with the machine, having him come into the room come in every couple of minutes with one inane comment after another, expecting to see me draw the pentagram and lay hands on the machine and have it spring forth, reborn -- but alas, even my ministrations (mitaus the goat) were to no avail. I told him to take it back to the company that sold it to him. "They're in Ohio."

Well, let's hope they show up at the next local computer show, Einstein, because the only way this is going to run is in a laundry basket in the back of your car.

Oh, and the next time you need help: Press that little button on the phone where the receiver lays, and I'll get back to you.