Something mechanical

Johnny loved his new Pear O'Book Pro. It ran a lot smoother than his old Doorways laptop. He could see why all the computer geeks raved about their Pears and had to admit, they'd been right all along. Much nicer interfaces, much more powerful machines, much less buggy. He didn't get viruses on it like he got on his Doorways. And Booble, the big Internet search giant where Johnny worked: Booble had just outlawed Doorways and mandated everyone getting Pears.

Johnny's weekend girlfriend Lauren still used a Doorways laptop. One day Johnny tried to use it. He'd left his Pear at the office by mistake and absolutely had to log into his Internet porn sites, check up on e-mail, etc. make sure he wasn't missing out on any mind-blowing hook-ups. Boy, had Johnny's life changed since January, almost a year ago, when he'd turned in his old Doorways for a Pear. Now here he was, typing away on Lauren's laptop, trying to get a message out to Tina, making a date for Tuesday at lunchtime. But the damned mouse in the middle kept screwing up.

He kept hitting the wrong control characters, hitting the stupid little mouse in the middle and taking the cursor somewhere else, boy, nothing ever worked on a Doorways. He wanted his Pear back, even if he couldn't do a pearl necklace with Tina lunchtime Tuesday. He could ping her tomorrow morning, make their date then. She'd still be around, he knew she was hot for his balls. Even if she wasn't, there was always Linda, Jennifer, or Meg. All the untouched women in his hook-up queue.

What's with this machine? It just froze up on Johnny. He couldn't get the cursor back. No clicking on the mouse, no typing characters, no hitting the return, delete, tab, shift, control, alt, function, digits, go fuck this stupid Doorways laptop characters. Nothing worked. It froze solid. He shut the top, thinking he'd restart it -- opened it up, the screen still there, his half-finished e-mail to Tina still on the screen. No way to get rid of it before weekend girlfriend Lauren wanted her Doorways laptop back.