Mindy's Story
Six months ago, Mindy Seeheeheean used her personal computer to purchase a blue camping chair. Today, for the fifth day in a row, Mindy’s bright blue chair is firmly planted outside the sprawling estate of Bill Gates, the man she believes is responsible for the death of her computer.
"I just want him to talk to me," Mindy cried at a rally last night. "I want to hear him tell me why my computer had to die."
Mindy is not alone. Over the past ten years, since the widely-celebrated release of Windows 95, an estimated 18.1 million Americans have lost their loved ones to the Blue Screen of Death, or BSD.
“It’s not something we take lightly,” says Beverly Byson, spokesperson for Best Buy Inc., the country’s leading seller of Windows-infected boxes. “It’s our policy to explain to each and every customer the downsides of a PC purchase. A lot of people come in thinking that a computer will help them through college, and many of them know about the risks of viruses and addictions to porn. But hardly anyone considers the very real possibility of the BSD taking everything down, forever… [We] try to warn them.”
At last night’s rally, attended by hundreds, including tech luminaries Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison, and two dorks calling themselves “the founders of Google,” Mindy told her personal, heart-breaking story.
"I wasn't doing nothing that wasn't normal," she said, tears welling. "I was just making my [daily] visit to [a supposedly Canadian pharmacy], and right when I was about to click the 'Add to Cart' button for my [crazy pills], everything went blue."
Deathly blue. That fateful morning Mindy was confronted with every PC owner’s worst nightmare: a bright blue screen covered with confusing symbols such as “0x” and “BFAAAD”. Thinking maybe she had simply taken too many pills with her breakfast, Mindy left her computer alone for several minutes and took a light nap. But, upon returning, she saw the blue screen was still there, like an evil screen saver trying to burn the odd symbols into her monitor.
So Mindy rebooted. And rebooted again. And again. To absolutely no avail.
“Many of the people have trouble accepting the death,” said Ipclick Ehclickclick, a technical support engineer for Microsoft. “They are keeping with the rebooting. But the rebooting does not matter. Death is death. The thing that is dead is dead and does not come back to alive.” He continued, “They push the button and it is not alive, they push it two and it is not alive. What are they thinking? Are they thinking, ‘Number Five, it is alive!!’ I do not know. It is the sad.”
The sad, indeed. But no matter how sad her story, Bill Gates has no plans to talk to Mindy. When questioned about the grieving trespasser on the way to his two hour “Reading DaVinci’s Backwards Writing” class, Gates explained that he already spoke with Mindy once, by phone, and had no intentions of speaking with her again.
“I have a company to run,” he said. “And more importantly, my life needs balance. If I spoke with every person who had a computer die because of my software, I would have pretty much no time for recreation. At all.”
Later he grew more combative with reporters. “Do you think I like the blue screen? Why would I like the blue screen? I encountered the blue screen at a convention a few years ago and it sucked. It sucked hard. Heck, I’m the one who wanted to change it to green, but my second in command [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer] overruled me.”
Mindy has heard Bill’s words, but she remains defiant. “I promise, I will sit here for at least five weeks,” she said. “I want him to know that I don’t believe him. I want him to know that America doesn’t believe him. And no matter what, I’ll sit here, in this chair, for five weeks. Five solid weeks. Nothing less than five. That’s my promise. Five weeks.”
When asked how long she was prepared to hold out, Mindy said, “Five weeks.”
Then she added, “Or until my new computer comes via UPS. You know, whichever comes first. You can’t ignore a working computer for a dead computer and some silly cause, you know.”