I’ll get to that later

There comes a time, maybe it’s several times a month or a week or a day, depending on how good you are at procrastinating, when you finally give up in defeat and yell at yourself, “Just do it already and get it over with.”

Generally, I’m pretty good about not procrastinating. Sure, there are plenty of things I put off doing — like the pile of clothes to be ironed, the pile that needs mending, the pile of books to be read, but that’s not procrastination, that’s simply not enough time. Definitely not procrastination. For the most part, I take to my chores willingly — maybe not with a smile on my face, but I get them done more or less without complaint and no excuses for why I couldn’t possibly get them done today.

Where this can-do attitude fails me is for those tasks in the “dreaded” category. You know the type: the call to Aunt Betsy to console her over her recently departed Mimi, who nearly clawed my eye out the last time I visited. Or balancing my checkbook (does anyone but me still do this?). Don’t even ask how far behind I am on this, but thankfully it’s only months, not years. Or going to the DMV for just about anything, because you know before you even leave the house that the one piece of paper you don’t bring — like the letter from Aunt Betsy or a bill from the telephone company, neither of which you own — is the crucial element to move your case forward.

But the most dreaded is buying a new computer. Actually, not so much the buying but the installing that comes after the buying.

The current “new computer” saga began months and months ago when my desktop computer started flashing signs at me telling me that Microsoft will no longer support Windows 10 come October. (I know right about now that all you Apple users are laughing at my misery.) Right about then I thought, no problem; I’ll get rid of the desktop, which is so last millennium anyways, and shift everything over to my laptop, which runs Windows 11. Problem solved.

Or so I thought.

That laptop is five years old. Which in computer years is 97. With each successive year, it’s gotten slower and slower, to the point where it’s become a doddering fool. The final straw came a few weeks ago when I installed a new Adobe Acrobat program (sorry, app; everything’s an app these days). I installed it with only minor distress on the laptop’s part, and everything was going along fine until one day last week, the 97 year old said, “I quit. I will no longer support you in your quest to run Acrobat.” There was no point in arguing.

Time to hit the store for a new laptop. With only minor distre$$ on my part, I walked out with a spanking new laptop and brought it home, in its box, and let it sit on the counter. Like the turkey at Thanksgiving — letting it sit for a while to breathe. And there it sat. And sat. And sat some more. Finally, I had to face it — the dreaded Install.

As it turned out, it wasn’t so dreadful a process. As a valued, although not particularly valuable, Microsoft account holder, it shifted all my files over without me lifting a finger. I don’t think I even asked it to. It just did it. That left me with only a few programs, er apps, to install. But before I could do that, my spiffy new laptop asked me to uninstall them from my old laptop.

Word to the wise: Don’t wait until your computer is 97 years old before getting a new one. Ninety-seven year olds do not like to uninstall, and they wheeze and whine the whole time.

But it’s done, and everything is newly installed, and now I have a computer that no longer has to go through death throes every time I turn it on. I am a happy camper with my new toy. I wasted all that dread for nothing. I guess it’s time to call Aunt Betsy.

This week’s musical installment comes from Bonnie Raitt …