I need to get something off my chest. Ten months ago, my husband and I lent our 17″ HP laptop computer to two international students (a married couple) who came to Canada to complete their Masters studies. In fact, those students have been living with us for the past ten months, without rent. They're kinda-sorta family, in the highly distant sense. So distant, that I'm more related to the Queen of England than I am to these two. Anyway, we finally confronted them about getting our laptop back last night, even though they had finished their studies back in April. And we knew some of the condition that we'd see when they finally did return our laptop back to us…. Unbeknownst to them, we had a brief need of our laptop while they were out back in November 2011, and found something… amiss, but I was completely gobsmacked this morning when I saw the full result of the damage.

Yes, there was a lot of damage; inside and out.

I think its a bit redundant to say that a persons blog is used differently, depending on the blogger. Okay, it totally is well and truly redundant. But, what I'm trying to point out is that I rarely want to, if ever, create drama with my blog. I want to use it as a type of Show N' Tell; to discuss all things beauty, fashion, technology and events. I love those topics, and I want to celebrate everything about them. I don't want to use it to tell my side of the dramatic epicness.

But I just HAVE to this time. I care for this laptop in a lot of ways you care for your child. I tended to it, made sure it was properly fed and free from any health issues. I bathed it. I even sang to it any time my iTunes app was up and running (this only happened when I was the only one home, lol.) This laptop was my baby, and I was proud that I could say it was in better condition than a lot of laptops that were years younger. These days, you're extremely lucky if your five year old laptop had enough juice and mental capacity to run Internet Explorer without crashing within a five minute window. In fact, you will replace your laptop every three to five years. But I had my five year old working so well, it was able to function with a multitude of programs from the Adobe CS4 suite running at the same time, along with a Firefox browser open, with at least 30 tabs running, all while working on the Windows Vista platform. My baby kicked ass.

I demanded a lot from my laptop and it rarely let me down. It had the ability to last another three years at the very least.

So when I say I've been mourning with no way to heal for my beloved laptop for six months now, I really have been ill at ease all this time. It was my joy.

Now look what returned back to me last night (right after my desktop started showing BSODs)….

They broke my laptop.

I can't even.

The smaller monitor in the back shows what the laptop monitor below it is supposed to look like. Want a closer look at this massacre??

Close up look at just how broken my laptop's screen really is.

But that's not all.

This part I didn't know until this morning when I was trying to look at the full extent of the damage.

It's like not being able to look away from a horrific car crash.

Not only did they bust my baby's screen well and truly, but they messed around with my HP's software too.

I'm trying to remember the last time I borrowed someone's computer… I don't think I have ever done so actually. But if I was to borrow, I know I wouldn't ever, EVER do these things (especially without asking first….)

  1. Download and install a multitude of torrent programs;
  2. Partition the hard drive;
  3. Install a separate operating system (so it now has both Windows Vista and 7 running on it;
  4. Allow a score of viruses to run freely through the system

When Nortons popped up with the virus warnings, I turned my baby off and walked away extremely stressed out. I know I'll find more damage when I'm ready to put all the pieces back together again.

So I now have to find and install a new screen (they “admitted” to calling HP to order a screen replacement, but they've had at least eight months to do this, so I'm pretty sure the call to HP was a fib since I caught them off guard with the request for usage,), and I have to remove the partition (something I've never done before), and re-birth it with it's original Windows Vista operating system if I can. I would love to put a 32-bit Windows 7 on there instead, but I can't afford to do so at the moment.

I guess what this post comes down to is a plea to respect technology, especially when it's owned and cared for by someone else.