I got your runtime error right here, buster

I spent the entire day today at work trying to reconstruct an important computer macro that somebody had written for me a few years ago: somebody much more savvy at this sort of thing than me. I’m not a computer programmer. I just use them and try to understand them to the best of my ability (I stop short of reading the manual). My computer crashed several weeks ago and of course I lost the macro. No I didn't back it up. (Insert lecture here. I'll read it later). The point is I don't do this sort of software manipulation very often or very well or very eagerly or very anything. When I do try to run sophisticated computer programs, there is usually a lot of "huh, that didn't work" and "I wonder what happens when I push this button" and "hey, it's lunch time already." The only certainty at the end of the day is that nothing will have changed. The program will still not work and I will be totally brain dead. It's very easy to see how computer nerds become the way they are. By 4pm today I could feel my eyebrow hair growing over the bridge of my nose.

I approach computer programming just like I do writing. I give it my all and I don’t like to give up until I have a finished product. The difference is that with writing I can at any point say “good enough,” push a button and publish the results. With computer programming, I can give up, too. But when I push that publish button, a message box appears stating that I am guilty of “runtime error 2604: unable to parse variable waveform.”

That’s a hell of a thing to say to someone. I’m sure that message means something to someone. Just not me. Now I get to think about runtime error 2604 all weekend. And face it again on Monday morning. I just hope I can sort this problem out before I end up with a full blown unibrow.