Frequently, I’m at a loss for words, but when I recently discovered that I’d left my computer on the security table at Heathrow Airport, I suffered no such deficiency – I found the exact words to express how I felt.  Fuck, fuck… and oh fuck!

Immediately my brain goes into overdrive, the scene of the crime is replayed many times over and analyzed down to the nanosecond.  How could this have happened to me, a seasoned traveler with countless airport miles to his credit?  Scrambling for plausible explanations as to how I could abandon my beautiful, priceless, irreplaceable computer in such a public place, I go for the first thought whenever I have screwed up –can I blame someone else?  Unfortunately not, this cock-up can be laid at no one else’s door.  Or can it?

In my mind’s eye I scrutinize the barely-remembered fellow travelers and even start to invent a scenario whereby some skulking, under-aged banker has spotted the opportunity and made off with my precious under his raincoat, later to take it out mid-flight and congratulate himself on his initiative.  My only consolation at this juncture is to remember that my computer is password protected.  Some consolation!

After rejecting all other options, I settle on the one that any man in my position would do, I blame my one-year-old daughter.   She and I had flown to London on a family trip to celebrate my grandson’s first birthday and, as any father will tell you, traveling with a baby when her mother is not around is a serious challenge; remembering to pack the pads, diapers, wipes, food, spoons, water, spare clothes in case of accidents, dummies, toys, books, something warm in case she’s cold… the list is staggering.  And all of this has to be as portable as possible because apart from the baby there is a pushchair and then all my stuff.  And I’m limited to only two arms.

Since I have been through a lifetime of airport security checks, I have fine-tuned my method; the computer comes out of its case, which in turn comes out of my roll-on, and then after walking through the ‘door of doubt’ goes back in my roll-on in the order in which it came out.

So… this is the reason I lost my computer; I wasn’t doing my usual routine, I was traveling with unusual bags.  Thanks to the baby.  It was her fault.

What happened was that I got searched, the baby got searched (!) and since we were hurrying, I quickly gathered up all my stuff, dressed myself again, made sure I had my iPhone, coinage, passports, boarding passes, bags, I opened up the pushchair and, making doubly sure not to forget the baby, hurried away from my forlorn, naked Mac waiting patiently in its own little anonymous plastic tray for its master to come and tuck it neatly back into its familiar, dark hideaway.  So alone and vulnerable.

It was many hours later, after I had arrived home that I discovered the cold, stomach-churning, heart-stopping truth about what I had done and uttered the aforesaid set of expletives. What have I lost?  The files in my mind began to turn over…

Fortunately, my sister used to work at Heathrow and contacted a friend in security who informed her that it had not been found or reported.   That night I went to bed in a wretched mood, wondering where my computer, my partner, my friend, was.

I was lucky, it was found the next day and arrangements were made to get it back to me.  Six days later it was back in my arms.  It was an emotional reunion and a satisfyingly happy ending.

Anyway, that’s not the point.  The reason I tell you this is not merely to confess to my absentmindedness or to humbly and publicly apologize to my innocent little girl for blaming her, but to observe the reaction it had on me, spending a week without my computer. It didn’t help that my big home computer went down at the same time with a severe cold and as I write is still in the computer hospital – that just compounded the misery.  I missed my daily fix; I was in a state of suspended connection.  Days seemed so closed-in, small, empty and all too stultifyingly real and ordinary.

I am now aware how much of my inner life runs through that silver slab.  I felt cut off from the world, uninformed, irritable and lonely, despite my helpless loved ones fretting over me and trying to calm me down.   That’s no way to be.

I suppose I should consider getting a life.   But this is my life.  And I love my computer.

If forgetting is a trait that I cannot deny, I must remember not to forget to back up.

Often.

What was life like before computers?  More complicated and yet somehow simpler.  Or is it the other way around?

Good luck,

RG