I’m typing this on my backup computer.

My backup computer used to be my computer when I only had one computer. But when I bought a new computer, that became “my computer” and my old computer became my backup computer.

My new computer is much small then my old computer, which is why it became my computer and my old computer became my backup computer.

I feel as if I’m using the word “computer” a lot.

In the world of computers, smaller is better. When I was a kid, computers used to be as big as a small apartment. We really didn’t know much about computers back then, they were just something people talked about in the same way they talked about flying cars.

When I was a kid, computers were used mainly for special punch cards that you weren’t supposed to “fold, spindle or mutilate,” even though nobody I knew had a clue what “spindle” meant.

Technically, my new computer isn’t really a computer, it’s a tablet that is also a computer.

I think.

We bought our 20-year-old daughter, Emma, a tablet before her first year of college and she was the one who convinced me to buy one for myself.

“Dad,” Emma said, “you will literally love it.”

At first I didn’t literally love it. It seems that the tablet’s major selling point (that it was smaller than my old computer) was not so much a selling point.

I have a hard time getting used to a different computer keyboard and since the new computer keyboard was much smaller than my old computer keyboard, typing on it was a bit of a challenge.

But I’m nothing if not a determined person so I gradually got used to my new computer.

One of the ways I gradually got used to my new computer was following my wife’s advice when she said, “You wanted a smaller computer and it cost a lot of money. So, start using it, you moron.”

One of the ways I determine if something costs a lot of money is to calculate how much beer I could buy with the money I spent on the item in question. After doing a bit a math, here is what I figured it would cost in beer: A lot.

And that’s how my new computer became my computer and my other computer became my backup. But late last week my tablet stopped working. I think the technical term for what happened is that “it broke.”

So on Saturday, my wife and I drove to Joplin to see if the computer people could fix it. We got to the computer place at 10:20 a.m. One of the computer guys asked if I had an appointment. When I told him that my computer broke and that I just wanted to leave it so somebody could fix it, the guy told me I had to make an appointment.

“Just to leave it here to be fixed?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

The computer guy explained that he didn’t actually fix computers, he just made appointments. He then said I could make an appointment for 11:20 a.m.

“But that’s an hour from now,” I said.

“Yes,” the guy said, not understanding my point.

So I made the appointment and an hour later I was talking to another computer guy.

When I told the computer guy that my computer broke he tried to turn it on. When nothing happened, he said, “It’s broke. We’re going to have to send it off to have it fixed.”

The guy said it might be three or four weeks before I get my computer back.

Sigh.

They better not spindle it.