The computer situation was getting intolerable. I had to write, after all, and there was no reason that a certified fucking computer wizard like myself had to put up with some snotty little iMac who wanted to snooze. So I decided: no more. I'd resolve this one way or the other.

First I remembered the mantra of every helpdesk person I'd ever talked to: Did you reboot? This is the first thing out of every IT person's mouth, ever, no matter what, even if you're asking them why your monitor suddenly burst into flames. "Did you reboot?" "Yes, I did, and it failed to correct the monitor-on-fire system error." Whenever I hear the question "Did you reboot?", I think of frat guys in college saying "Didja fuck her?"

Anyway. Remembering the sage advice of others, I rebooted. Several times. I booted and rebooted the fucking machine around the room for a half hour, pausing only to ice up my foot periodically, as it was swelling noticably. Finally, hobbled by pain, I had to give up, and thought that later I'd probably have to figure out how to reboot my foot, as it hurt like hell, and I wondered how I'd do that. But it sure didn't do much for the iMac. It still wasn't working at all, and its CD tray was sticking out at me obscenely.

I picked up the little green beast and stared at it, wondering what to do next. Then, struck by inspiration, I began searching for its ass. This isn't as weird as it sounds: many times I have found that when I mercilessly grope the wife's ass, she more often then not springs into action at the stimulus. I figured that the iMac, being far less sophisticated than the wife (the iMac is, in truth, about as sophisticated as a fucking plank of cedar) would respond in kind. I turned the thing over in my hands, searching without success for the thing's ass. It was ungoosable. I tried to improvise by ramming a screwdriver into a USB port for a while, but the thing didn't even flinch.

This was getting bad. I realized that I couldn't do this alone. I needed to call reinforcements. That's when I called George Clooney. My reasoning was, hey, a former fake doctor is just what I need in order to help me diagnose what was wrong with my former fake computer. He naturally agreed to come right over.

"I need booze," he said when he came in the door. "Whip me up an Asian Tennis Racket." I nodded and went to the bar--I was pleased that he remembered my special drink. I mixed sake together with a special liquor imported from Madagascar and poured over ice. George eyed it critically, and then drank like a fiend. "Show me the patient," he said throatily. I took him to the iMac.

He stared at it. "I see you tried rebooting," he said after a while. "For like half an hour," I replied. "And don't even try goosing the sonofabitch. Thing doesn't have any kind of ass at all." " 'Sallright . . . neither does Brad Pitt, you want to know the truth."

George began gingerly probing the iMac, looking for trouble spots. "Does this hurt? How about this?" he asked. The iMac remained reticent, but George was unperturbed. My man. Eventually, he stopped the examination and sat contemplatively on my sofa, taking a hit off of my giant 15-gallon bong, known as the Green Manalishi. He exhaled a fog front of bluish smoke.

"I think I know the problem," he wheezed. "There's a problem with the TCP/IP settings."

"You mean 'tickipip,' " I said, gently correcting him.

"Right, whatever. It seems that you've got a bad Melissa Etheridge card, and it's just playing 'Come To My Window' over and over." He frowned. "It's pretty bad."

"Jesus!" I screamed. "That's fucking horrible!"

"Yeah," George drawled, "I once saw a machine get stuck on 'I Want To Come Over,' and it shut itself down for good."

"There's no hope, then," I moaned gloomily. "I'm going to have to put it down. Nothing can withstand that kind of assault. Poor little tickipip." I started fixing another round of Asian Tennis Rackets while George lolled bonelessly on the sofa, caressing the Green Manalishi.

"Yeah," he said tonelessly as I handed him the drink, "you're gonna have to upgrade. Get you a new machine . . . with that OSX shit in it." He sipped distractedly. "Those fuckers got Neko Cases."

"Man," I said, toasting him. "Now you're talking."