Eulogy for a MacBook

Remembering the life of my computer

The surgeon called time of death at 1:32 pm. She said nothing more could be done; it was too old. I put my head in my hands, trying to block out the bright lights of this sterile place. My mom nodded. We both knew this was coming. I looked up at her and whispered, “Sorry.”

“Would you like me to have it recycled for you?” the surgeon said. I paused. I shouldn’t be this sentimental about a hunk of metal, but yet, I was. “No,” I replied, taking it back into my camel-coloured tote bag. She looked at me, almost sympathetically, “Well, if you ever decide you want to, just come on back.” I thanked her, and we exited back into the mall.

My Space Grey MacBook Pro has been with me since August 2019, right before I left for college. I bought it with my graduation money from my maternal grandparents, both of whom had passed away before the check hit my bank account. It was silly of me to shell out for the Pro when I would have been just fine with an Air, but I was young and materialistic. I look at the back of my laptop now and see a collection of worn stickers that reflect who I’ve been over the years. Let’s start a sticker tour to commemorate the life of the device that has carried me through the years.

The first two that stick out to me are from my time in Milwaukee. I went to Marquette University for one semester. I remember most of that time period being difficult. It was my first time really being away from home, and it hit me harder than I ever thought it would. My dorm was on the eighth floor in a building that needed a lot of work, and my roommate (I believe) was a kleptomaniac who only sought attention from boys. So I was often kicked out in favor of her male companions. When I re-entered, the suffocatingly small room smelled like sweat and sex; I opened the window often. It was lonely up there, high above the mid-sized city that sank below.

I used my school-supplied bus pass to distract myself from the life I was living. There’s a sticker on my laptop for Colectivo Coffee. I would go there at least twice a week to work on homework. They have many locations across the city, so I rotated which one I went to. The best location is one right on the lakefront. You can sit outside and eat your breakfast sandwiches and coffee with a sparkling view of Lake Michigan. Of course, this is also the busiest location, so I usually went to one in the city proper and ordered a Windy City. It’s Earl Grey tea with oatmilk and lavender syrup. I’m not sure if they still have it, but it was delicious and comforting.

The second sticker from Milwaukee is from a Mexican restaurant called Belair Cantina. I went here first during orientation, but typically, my family and I would go here whenever they were in town. The best part about this place was the volume of food they gave you. Your meal started with free chips and salsa, but not just any chips and salsa. They gave you three different salsas. One spicy, one moderately spicy and one smoky. The smoky was my personal favorite. An order of three tacos came with rice and beans, so there were always leftovers.

The next sticker is from Atticus coffee shop, located in Park City, Utah. Now, the coffee shop is unremarkable to me. All I remember was that it smelled like a church basement but had a cute aesthetic, filled with books and stickers. But when we went to Park City in the summer of 2020, it became one of my favorite places, although I’ve only been back once. On this trip, we went to the Homestead Crater (a place they also went on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City), and floated in naturally warm water that went uncomfortably deep. After, we drove our rental car to a roadside outdoor restaurant that had some of the best gluten-free chicken nuggets my mom, who’s had celiac for two decades, had ever had.

Now I’m looking down at the smiling face of Bernie Sanders. The sticker reads “I endorse Bernie.” Which I still do, I’m a bleeding heart liberal till the end. Bernie has been my hope in politics since 2016. I see him as someone who actually believes in what he says and who believes that things can actually change. He and others like him have shaped my political identity for the better. I think, especially today, it’s difficult to see any light through the clouds. But just knowing that there are people out there who think that helping people is more important than gassing up billionaires and coveting wealth makes me a tiny bit optimistic.

I have two clear back stickers on the top left corner of my laptop. One says, “Harry Styles,” and the other says, “Fine Line”. I purchased 3 tickets for Love on Tour during my 11 am Sociology class at Marquette, my palms sweating with anxiety and my fingers moving faster than they ever had. The concert got postponed twice because of COVID, but more than two years later, myself and two of my friends got up at 6 am to sit in line for the barricade. We waited for 12 hours before we got in. I embroidered a mask while waiting, and we were at the front of the crowd. I was shaking with exhaustion during the opener, but when Harry came on, I became transfixed.

The most recent sticker (although still at least four years old) is a Scoops Ahoy sticker. Now, something you may not know about me is that I actually discovered Stranger Things. I watched it immediately after it came out, unlike all the other posers, and introduced it to my family. We would watch in our family room during the long summer days when the air was sticky with heat in St. Louis and no one wanted to go outside. Light would stream in through the blinds, and the ghost that lived just outside our side door would interrupt our watching with intermittent knocks (I will not elaborate).

In closing, I want to say thank you to this device that has been with me for the past six years of my life. I believe it is important to give thanks to anything or anyone that serves us in this life. I also want to thank the stickers for giving me glimpses of the life I have lived and for representing and reigniting memories I may have otherwise forgotten.

I will be taking my laptop to the Apple Store tomorrow for recycling.