I am technologically deficient. I walk into a Best Buy and the closest laptop gives up its ghostly hard drive. In my first big girl job out of college I was not allowed to run end of month closeout for fear of singlehandedly wrecking the mainframe. My cellphone is secretly a transformer named Alice whose magic power is self-healing, she has been rebooted enough to believe in reincarnation. It’s bad. In turn, my frustration with technology can well… sometimes it can get out of hand.

My poor husband deals with most of the brunt of my technological dysfunction. He sets the default printer on my computer five hundred times a month after it mysteriously resets itself (I don’t bode well with printers either) and keeps Kleenex on hand when the tears begin to flow. He can open Task Manager in under five seconds flat, and never hesitates to bring me a glass of bubbly and send me out of the room while he does epic battle with the latest victim of my hand.

The most painful aspect in this saga of being technologically cursed has been getting married. Marriage itself is bliss (most of the time), however changing ones name in every major computer database, account, and profile has been an overwhelming tale for the ages. Login names must be remembered from years ago, trips must be taken to scary “adulting” places such as the Social Security Office and the DMV. The 16 year old still very much present in my mind lurks terrified at the counters of these institutions thinking the half-awake attendant will suddenly recognize me and announce, “There has been a mistake, and you were not worthy. Give me back your driver’s license.” Anyone else feel this way?

My struggle not daunting enough, I also started a new job in the midst of my name changing escapade. Tonight’s escapade involved sending in some simple verification documents for my health insurance. There was the option to fax them in, or I could simply upload them to their website. Even though I am well aware of my techno wrecko disease, I stupidly thought, “How hard could it be?” Now hours later, I think I submitted something… possibly. With my knight of a husband by my side, we did battle against invalid logins and asterisk laden field screens, dove through “forgot my password” shrapnel and volleys of “scan incomplete, try again” bombardments.

Weary in my chair, I feel worn down but not defeated. I have a secret weapon. There is lore of an ancient fax machine at work that does not know itself that it could be deemed “modern.” In its ignorance it may accept me as one of its own. We shall have a rendezvous tomorrow, and I shall be victorious. Stay tuned.