In which I buy a dongle.

Animation artist Chuck Jones, the guy who invented Pepe Le Pew and the Road Runner/Coyote binary, once noted the existence of a vast conspiracy to keep people from getting where they need to go. It’s called the Anti-Destination League, and it was out in force for me yesterday.

My to-do list contained eight errands when I set out at 1 p.m. When DF called me at 6 p.m. only four of the to-dos were to-done and I was nearly spitting with frustration.

Our conversation included something I could never have imagined I’d say: “It’s not as easy to buy a dongle as you might think.”

 

It was a day of slow-moving cars and quick-changing traffic lights. A simple request at the credit union that turned into 15 minutes of “it’ll be just a second.” A long line at customer service when I needed to return an item. Longer lines when I needed to ask how to buy the right kind of dongle. Trips to three different stores to buy said dongle.

I spent 10 minutes in line at the office supply store’s copy center listening to a woman complain about how expensive a laminating job was going to be. The last time I came in here it wasn’t anywhere near that much. Why did it go up so much? How can it cost that much? And on and on and on.

When the poor clerk had tried to explain and apologize for about the tenth time, the woman emitted a last, disgusted harrumph and gathered up the things she wanted laminated. Hurrah! My turn! I thought.

Of course it wasn’t. She turned back to the clerk: “I guess I want some of it laminated anyway.”

 

Technology is wonderful – when it works

All I’d wanted was two sets of copies made – handouts for the New Media Expo conference. I’m speaking there next week and will be networking (ugh) and promoting my new online writing course. To have left the store and driven to another copy place would likely have taken just as much time as waiting for the woman to finishing venting.

When I finally got my turn, the copying took two minutes. Then I made the mistake of asking if I could sign up for the store’s rewards program. In the past when I’ve joined a new loyalty deal it’s taken all of 10 seconds: The clerk swipes the card at the register and gives me the paperwork to complete online or fill out and mail.

This time, though, the scanner refused to accept the card. The clerk tried again and again and it finally took. “Name? Address? Phone number?” he asked.

Couldn’t I just do that myself, later?

“No, we have to do it here. Another company bought us and we’re doing it their way.”

So I reeled off my vitals and he dutifully typed them in, but the register wouldn’t store the information. The clerk apologized, explaining that the new owner’s system still had a few bugs. And no, he couldn’t answer any dongle questions – I’d have to talk to someone in computers.

That someone, when located, asked which kind of dongle was required. Turns out that “for a MacBook Air, so my computer can talk to the audio-visual system at a conference” wasn’t enough information. I asked to sign on to a store computer to point out the item the conference Facebook page mentioned.

Naturally Facebook was suspicious because this wasn’t my usual ISP. To prove I was really Donna Freedman, I had to give the last name of my first-grade teacher – which Facebook refused to accept. Apparently I was drunk and/or misspelling when I initially set up that identifying information, because her name really was Mrs. Mxyzptlk* no matter what Facebook chooses to believe.

My other option was to identify photos of friends. Some really crappy photos, however. I’m lucky I didn’t run out of “skip” options before I identified enough of them.

The punchline? The clerk looked at the item and said, “Oh, that’s an Apple product. We don’t sell those. You’ll have to go to an Apple store.”

 

Dazed and confused (and still dongle-less)

Off to a nearby Apple retailer, at which point my ability to communicate was breaking down. It took me a couple of minutes to make myself understood, sort of a run-together mumble of going to a conference starting Saturday, need a stupid piece of equipment so I can do my presentation, can’t find it, very tired.

Although the clerk didn’t appear to be old enough to vote he seemed to have had plenty of experience with confused patrons. Unfortunately he, too, needed more info than was contained in my mumble. Although I knew what would probably happen, I asked to sign on to Facebook so I could show him the item.

(Why hadn’t I written it down in the other store? Because I’d been so aggravated by the clerk’s cluelessness – MacBook Air is also an Apple product, bro! – that I just needed to get back to my car before I violated the terms of my probation.**)

The same Facebook folderol awaited me: Identify your teacher or identify your friends. The photos were even worse than before; one of them was a badly cropped photo taken in a playground and the only thing I could see was a make-believe airplane wing. The clerk shook his head in sympathy when I did run out of skip options. Somehow he got the thing to reset and I finally signed on.

“Oh, I know what you need,” he said after seeing the dongle in question.

And…

…wait for it…

The store was out of that particular dongle. My expression must have been fairly tragic because he said, “Have you tried Best Buy?”

 

Un-sound decisions

Bless his heart for recommending a competitor. Best Buy did have what I wanted. The checkout clerk said, “Did you find everything you needed?”

Yes, thank you Lord.

“Just to make sure: You know this is just for picture, not sound, right?”

Whaaaaat? No one at the conference Facebook page mentioned anything about sound dongles! But since my presentation is a words-only PowerPoint, between us we decided that it would likely work.

My talk, “Stop Calling It ‘Content’!!!,” takes place on Monday morning. On Sunday evening I’ll be attending a party for speakers and sponsors and I plan to take the device with me. Surely some tech savant there (i.e., anyone over the age of 12 who isn’t me) will be able to discern whether it’s the right one.

Then everything will be all right. That is, unless I get kicked out for screaming, “Won’t somebody please look at my dongle???”

Incidentally, a dongle is “a small piece of hardware that attaches to a computer, TV, or other electronic device in order to enable additional functions.” And yes, it is a funny word.

*That’s not really her name. Mr. Mxyzptlk was a character from the Superman comics. I may not be tech-savvy but I do know not to reveal the answer to a Facebook prompt.

**I’m not really on probation. But after yesterday I might well have ended up there.

Related reading:

• What’s the weirdest thing you ever charged?
• Things I no longer buy
• I hate shopping
• Some things are worth the cost