BEEP BO BEEP BOP, BEEP BO BEEP BOP
Only twice in my life have I gotten these sorts of urgent late night calls from female friends. The first was back in year one university when a certain sensitive girl phoned me in complete tears. Why? Her computer was blitzing out. It only took a little digging to discover that she'd opened an internet link titled "sexvid", all because she'd been desperately clicking random buttons to find the newest episode of Gossip Girl online (needless to say, I still don't buy that excuse... I think she's probably a raging nymphomaniac who needs help).
Regardless, the phone call last night was -- surprise surprise -- about this other girl's computer problems. Windows Defender had detected some sort of virus creature and she was worried sick (albeit not in tears like Porno Girl). Well, since Windows Defender is like the barely-qualified school nurse of computer health, I suggested she run an AVG scan and see what that report had to say. Since it would take hours, we said our goodnights and that was that.
This morning, I get a text from this friend saying that AVG had found threats but wouldn't delete them. She then goes on to say that she emptied the virus vault and asks "is that the same thing as removing them?".
News Flash: if you have no clue what you're doing, don't start deleting shit! This is the type of girl who would stick a wet knife in an electric toaster to fish out the two pennies she dropped inside. Her cuteness is no excuse for her blonde buffoonery.
In lieu of explaining things she wouldn't understand, I told her: "Your computer has had viruses for months if not years, it's just slowly metastasizing. For you to fix all its problems would take three days in hell with a tech guy named Jesus. I suggest holding its hand as it dies its painful, cancerous death."
Well this wasn't exactly the answer she wanted to hear, so she asks about reformatting the whole drive from scratch. I say "sure, if you're brave enough", to which she asks "alright, but can I keep my music and pictures?".
Sigh.
No, you can't wipe an entire system off your computer and expect to keep the music and picture files. That's like me wanting a sex change and saying to the surgeon "would you please leave my left testicle? I really want a vagina, but can that one ball still dangle down?". It's all or nothing.
The girl then explains that a different boy once promised to reformat her computer and, not only that, but also said he'd use his fancy external hard drive to keep the files that she didn't want deleted.
At this point, I felt like a dad shaking his head at an impatient, naive daughter. This girl is like family to me, but, well, there's only so much a dad can say. When she had a serious problem late last night, she knew she could call me for anything and I'd be there. But now that a few hours had passed, she was done with dad and eager to go back to the boy who'd promised who-knows-how-long-ago to put his hands all over her software.
My last warning was: "If he sticks his external hard drive in your dirty USB hole, there's a risk of him getting your digital STI."
Her reply: "Don't worry, he's smart. I'm sure he'll think of these things", to which I quickly retorted "He's also a boy. Mark my words, if you bring this up to him he'll whisper 'Don't worry, babe. That won't happen to us'".
I tell you, life is tough as the metaphorical dad whose daughters call late at night for computer comfort. You can warn them all you want, but ultimately they have to learn from their own mistakes.
Please, practice safe computing.
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