This is my Lovely Novelette.
I've hadd this G4 450 since October of 2002. It was my karmatic birthday present, as it were. Or at least, I saw it as such.
I worked in a place where the front desk receptionist was working in exchange for room and occasional board. She was something of a recovering crack whore. Surprising as it may be for you to learn that I worked in close proximity to an ex-crack-whore, it is of importance to note that she was the second such female to work the job in as many years.
It should also be noted that I, myself, was working under a similar arangement; working for room and board. It's actually not such a bad arangement, provided you work in a place you sincerely love. A farm. An artist colony. A hippy cheese commune. Or, a place that was the antithesis of these three listed locales of places?
A place where old electronics go to die. A massive brick structure beneath the highest tower on International Blvd., in east Oakland. It was my home, and it was her home, and it was also home to many other people. Some scattered throughout the computer recycling center, others squirreled away in the warehouse nextdoor. Further more in high-cost lofts upstairs. And even more still at the homeless shelter out front. The computers, and I, and the whore all lived in the warehouse. A massive indoor loading dock stood outside our windows, and our rooms were distant from each other by an order of football fields.
And she was, at times, no so ex-crack-whorish. She was, from time to time, an actual whore. Not so much the crack, though. As far as I know, anyway. There were days when she'd come in black and blue, and our bowling-ball shaped boss told her to 'stay the fuck away from that pimp, or you cannot work here any more.'
But she never turned in her pimp. And she always went back.
But there were times when she was away from him that she was working on her own. I'd see strange men driving away at 3 AM, or an odd fellow in the bathroom at midnight. All shy, all dirty.
But one morning, in the middle of November, right around my birthday, this whore... Let's call her Twister... was at the front desk, ready for work at 9:45 AM. The phones were ringing, but we didn't open until 10 AM. Twister was bbusying herself with what, from far away looked like a laptop. I, repleat in pajama pants, workshirt, and thongs, tooled around the corner on my Razor Scooter. I whizzed by and saw that Twister was, in fact, in posetion of a brand new Mac G4 Powerbook. It was one of the first gen TiBooks, very pretty, and super sexy at the time. I shouted my advice back to her as I went past, figuring she was trying to start up some cool present she'd been given.
"Nice laptop. That's a great machine!" I hollered as I rolled towards the bathroom to brush my teeth before work. She yelled back an acknowledgement, sounding surprised. On my return trip I stopped to inspect the computer, which she was holding out like a a dead fish. Despite the fact that she worked in a computer recycling center, she had no idea howw to use the cursed things.
I tossed out a value, somewhere near $1000. This was a very common thing to do at the computer center. Everything was being pushed towards dissasembly and destruction, so it was necesary to point out the golden fruit from the piles, lest they be taken apart and sent out as scrap metals and plastics. It became second nature.
Twister looked surprised, but not too happy. She said, immediately, "I'll give it to you for 200 bucks."
Normally, I would have balked, but it just so happened I had $200 in cash in my bedroom. Squirreled away fro a rainy day. I Told Twister I would buy it from her, but that she'd have to wait until lunch for me to get the money. I needed dough to accomplish my daily tasks, and I did not want to remove these bills from my stream of disposable income. She said that would be fine, and I scooted back to my room to dance a happy jig.
When I returned to open the doors for business, Twister shouted, "I'll take just $100." I rolled over to her, pulled out 5 $20's, and she handed me the pristine TiBook, plus power adapter.
And now, after almost 4 years, This laptop is too old for my uses. I put a 40 GB drive in it, and a DVD Burner. And decorated it, as you can see here.
And yet, I do not have enough dough to purchase a nice new Intel-based MacBook. But, in mimickrey of the 9-year-old who wanted a PSP, I am asking anyone out there who wants to trade: Give me a new Intel MacBook, and I will give you this Loveley Novelette.
