Despite this we stay for December 8, 2011

by Carol Dunn
HUERFANO — If you live in the city and some appliance or electronic gadget breaks, you just jump in your car and run down to the appropriate store and you buy another one. There will be thousands to choose from. But not in Huerfano.
Say for example your wireless computer mouse stops working. You can’t just run down to the computer store and buy another one. Because first of all, the computer store isn’t open 24-7, and usually that stuff – just about any stuff – breaks when stores are closed. And you can’t just whip up a new wireless mouse in the kitchen. You are pretty much stuck with a broken wireless mouse, which is about as useful as a broken real mouse, except your cat won’t eat a broken wireless mouse. Ok, your dog might eat the broken wireless mouse, but he will barf it back up on the rug in your office – just like he would do with the broken real mouse.
Anyway, back to the broken mouse. The obvious solution is to have a spare mouse sitting around that you can install so you can get back to work right away. Of course, next time it won’t be the mouse, it’ll be the keyboard. So you’d better have a spare keyboard lying around. And what if next time it’s the hard drive that goes bad, or the speakers, or the motherboard, or the power supply, or the CD drive, or the modem, or the video card, or the fan? Well, you’d better have one of all these things lying around just in case. Come to think of it, you pretty much need to have a whole extra computer sitting around just waiting for the time you need it most. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a computer technician living in the guest house to get the spare computer up and running when it is needed. It’s not just computers either. It could be the satellite receiver, the rice cooker, your GPS, the burglar alarm, the bread machine, and most urgent of all, the remote control for the TV. Weren’t these things supposed to make our lives easier?
So by now, this is getting very expensive, what with supporting a spare computer technician with appliance and small engine repair experience. Maybe some of these stubborn ranchers around here have it figured out pretty well. When you live in Huerfano, it’s cheaper and less aggravating to not own a computer or any of these other gadgets in the first place. Yes, yes, I know. Perish the thought!