One or two other dumb computer stories

• Tech Support: "Now press the spacebar."
• Customer: "Return bar?"
• Tech Support: "No, space bar. Space."
• Customer: "I have an enter bar, return bar, and a shift key?"
• Tech Support: "No, space. Space bar. The long horizontal key."
• Customer: [confused sounds]
• Tech Support: "Ok, see your c, v, b, n, and m keys?"
• Customer: "Yes...."
• Tech Support: "Right under them."
• Customer: "Oh."

One user noted that MAC keyboards are typically relatively small, but that IBM keyboards are "big" things with "keys all around the top and down the sides" and so forth. He figured that this might be one of the reasons why IBMs and MACs "don't like to talk to each other."

• Tech Support: "Use the right arrow key to move to the next field on the screen."
• Customer: "You mean the 'Backspace' key?"
• Tech Support: "No, ma'am, the right arrow key."
• Customer: "You mean the 'Enter' key?"
• Tech Support: "No, ma'am, the right arrow key."
• Customer: "I don't have a right arrow key."
• Tech Support: (head in hands) "Point to the space bar on the keyboard."
• Customer: "Ok."
• Tech Support: "Now, move you finger to the right."
• Customer: "Ok."
• Tech Support: "Did you find the left arrow key?"
• Customer: "Yes."
• Tech Support: "The right arrow key is two more keys to the right."
• Customer: "Oh, ok."

An man purchased a laptop from me. He called about a week later and said that it would no longer boot up. He brought it in, and I discovered that sixteen nicely drilled holes were in the bottom of the case. I asked him about it, and he said the machine was too hot sitting on his lap, so he had drilled these "air holes."

"Could that be the problem?" he asked.

A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) bought a brand new Toshiba laptop computer last year since his "old" one was a model from the year before. He worked in the computer services office on campus here at our university. He decided one night that to impress his co-workers he would make his new laptop more decorative. He bought a can of emerald green Krylon spray paint and sprayed his entire computer (screen, mouse, keyboard, casing, and all) with it. He was shocked to find that his computer wouldn't work afterwards and decided the paint must be at fault. So the next day he bought a can of Goo Gone and a bottle of paint thinner and poured them both on his computer, then rinsed it off in the sink.

Again, he was shocked when his computer wouldn't work. He was even more shocked when Circuit City told him they wouldn't refund his money or exchange his computer for a new one.