Virus', Meltdowns, and Angst

What a week!  

I'm a Vine reviewer at Amazon.com. I love it--all the books I could ever want at my fingertips, and for free! The only thing I had to do was review them.  

Which leads me to my grandson, Joshua.  

Sunday evening we were putting up our review of a new children's book, The Loser's List. Josh loved it and we had fun writing the review together. As I patted myself on the back for being such a creative grandma in finding a way to encourage reading by a grandson addicted to computer games, he asked me if he could play an online game. I said yes, helped him find the game he was looking for, and clicked on the link.  

The next thing I knew all hell broke loose.  

Ugh!  

The game had been hacked by a  virus that immediately downloaded into my computer.

Up pops this stupid screen telling me I had thousands of infections. Fortunately, I knew it was a virus from the get go. I can't imagine what would have happened had I been duped to run the entire program. 

I spent the first three hours trying to run my anti-virus program. I tried everything even going into the root directory. By the time I went to bed on Monday I could no longer access my email, the Internet, Word, or any other program that resided within my hard drive.  Worst of all, Comcast had just upgraded my account to Infinity and my previous anti-virus program was MIA.  

After work on Tuesday, I hit my computer again. This time I opened in Safe Mode w/drivers. I was able to open Internet Explorer and hit the Internet seeking  something that would wipe out the virus. Problem was, I didn't know which website was real or another virus. I headed to Microsoft and when I put in the name of the virus, Microsoft hadn't heard of it.  

Drumming my fingers against my chin, I contemplated accessing one of the sights. I ended up with PC Tools. I spent the next two hours attempting to download an anti-virus program in Safe Mode--not an easy task.  Once everything ran, PC Tools told me I had 135 virus' and it would cost me 39.95 to purchase the program to wipe them out. So, even though PC Tools told me the file was free it was only free to find the virus'. If you wanted to get rid of them, it was 40.00 bucks.  

I gave up and headed to bed.  

So what's it like to be a writer without a computer? Miserable. Damn miserable and frustrating.  

Plus, I HATE giving up.   

The following day, after a long ten hours at work, I was back in front of my screen seriously contemplating paying the 40.00 bucks for an anti-virus program. I told my husband what I wanted to do. He was outside, tending to the yard, the fact that it was one hundred degrees didn't faze him.    

"What?" he said. "You wanna give them our information too?"  

I turned around and stomped into the house, slamming the front door behind me. Back in my seat, I stared at my screen. Once again I searched the root directory to no avail. Back I went outside. "So what do you think if I just take the damn thing to Staples?"  

With one eyebrow lifted he said, "You want to give our information to everyone?"  

I crossed my arms. "No of course I don't want to do that."  

"Then throw the damn thing out. We don't need a computer anyway."  

What? We don't need a computer? Is he nuts?  

Back inside I go, once again slamming the front door behind me.  

Argh!!!!!   

I screamed at my computer and the creator of this virus. However, taking stock of everything I'd learned about it, I realized it wasn't as smart as I'd thought it was. In fact, if I just exited out of the warning boxes  the thing wouldn't follow me. So, I had discovered a way to beat it, it was just time consuming and irritating. Plus I could only open my machine in Safe Mode.  

"Why don't you pull up Comcast and see if they have something that can help you?"  

My husband stood behind me, shoes green from flying grass, legs, hairy with bits of tree litter, I smirked. What does he know about computers...  

"Well, if you don't find my suggestion helpful I'll just leave."  

And he did.  

To make a long story short, I accessed Comcast's home page, clicked on security, then spent the next several hours downloading the anti-virus which ran perfectly in Safe Mode, backed up all my files, reran and killed all virus', then shut down the machine, happy at last to have my computer back.  

Then I had to thank my computer-illiterate husband.   

"So you're done?" he asked hopefully.  

"I'm done. And thanks. I couldn't have done it without you."  

"How come you didn't think of  contacting Comcast?" he asked. He sincerely wanted to know. This wonderful man, couldn't understand why I didn't think of the easiest solution. After all, I was the one with  the experience.  

"Sometimes," I said. "You can't see the forest for the trees."  

Good reading!