BLAH BLAH BLAH PORN BLAH BLAH BLAH

Technology is really not my thing. I am fairly certain there is a monster living in my computer and so I have the little lens thing that allows you to video chat with people covered over by a small bit of a post-it note. Also, it seems as though I am almost constantly running into problems. Not your normal, run-of-the-mill problems, either. Like, if I have an issue and I call Apple to have them help me resolve it, they generally will be like,

“Wow, that is really weird. I have never seen anything like this. Okay let’s try this thing which works approximately 99% of the time”

and I’m like

“Yea, okay, but it probably won’t work. I am the 1% and not like the rich kind of 1% but the kind of 1% who has really fucked up luck”

and then sure enough we will try the thing and it will fail. Last time I had computer problems I was the 1% six different times. It’s kind of amazing, actually. If getting shat on by birds and other animals that live in trees (squirrels, lizards) wasn’t already my superhero power then I think being technology’s kryptonite would definitely be it. Or maybe I have two superhero powers. Does anyone know if that is allowed? Let me know, please.

Anyway, for this installment of “Every Piece of Technology Rebekah Touches Turns to Shit,” let us travel back in time to this past Sunday, approximately 4:30 pm. So there I was, sitting in my room, trying to motivate myself to go for a run. I had plans to meet up with a friend at around 6 which left me just enough time for a 4-miler and a shower, if I got a move on. Before the run, though, I decided I just had to go into the website for New York Sports Club and figure out what time the spin class the next day was so I could sign up and get myself to exercise before my bartending shift at 11 the next morning. So I went onto Google and looked up New York Sports Club, clicked on the link and

DANGER!

All of a sudden my computer said that I was on some sort of an insecure site or something and all of my financial information might be compromised. Oh no! So I clicked what I interpreted as the “run away” option which led me to some other site where this pop-up appeared and my computer started beeping at me. Oh my god it was making the most horrible sounds. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! I didn’t know what to do. Obviously, I was having an ill fantasy about how at that very moment all of my information was being broadcast into the universe and the little money that I have saved up was just going to go <POOF!> and some asshole living in like Boise or some shit was going to finally buy that gaming system he always wanted. I noticed, through all the beeping, that there was a phone number to call to have someone make sure my computer was secure. I know, I know, you all are probably now leaning towards your computer screen, hand over your mouth, yelling

“You fool! Don’t call the number! The beeping was the hook, but the number is the scam!”

Well, fuck you. It’s really hard to think logically when your computer sounds like it might explode at any moment and you’re thinking all your hard work is only going to go towards buying some kid you’ve never met a new dirt bike! It’s very stressful! So, yea, I called the fucking number. And a dude answered. And he said something about some company or other only I couldn’t really hear him over all the goddamn beeping but I was afraid to close the window because I thought that maybe closing the window was the scam. It was all very stressful. But I decided to see what the guy had to say.

Me: I’m sorry, can I close this window? Is my computer going to explode?
Dude: No ma’am it will not explode. You can close the window.
Me: Okay cool. (Closing window. Silence. No explosions.) Okay so now who am I speaking with? What company is this?
Dude: You called me, ma’am. You are speaking to a representative from Apple.
Me: Yea, I know I called you but I only called you because this number appeared on my screen and I panicked.
Dude: Ma’am, just go to this website.

So I go to the website. Now before we go any further, just let me remind you that I have had many, many problems with my computer. I have had to call Apple Support at least a million times and even though I try to be super polite and friendly when my number pops up I imagine all the representatives are like

No! It’s the girl with the fucked up luck!

And they pass my call around like a hot potato. I bring this up because I am very familiar with what a phone call to Apple entails – automated options menu, long hold times, terrible music. In all my experience with Apple never once has some random dude just answered the phone. Now that the beeping had stopped I was able to actually assess the situation. I definitely had a funny feeling. But whatever, I went to the website. It was a screen sharing thing. So again, I have shared my screen with many an Apple employee and this is not the software they used. So,

Me: Um…what company do you work for?
Dude: Apple, ma’am.
Me: Yea, but this website does not have any connection to Apple whatsoever.
Dude: We contract out to other companies, ma’am. (He loved calling me ma’am. I hated it.)

And this was the moment where it all came together. Apple doesn’t contract shit out to other companies. Apple is an asshole! I told the dude on the phone maybe he should try working for a reputable company rather than a scam operation. He kept telling me that I called him. I couldn’t argue with his logic. I could, however, call him a liar, a thief and a scoundrel which, by the way, I did (I had been trying to find a situation in which to use the word scoundrel for like a week). I hung up the phone forcefully (well, as forcefully as you can press the end call button on a Samsung Galaxy which, admittedly, is not very forcefully at all) and I called actual Apple. I was greeted by the familiar automated options menu, the longer-than-average wait times and the terrible hold music. Aaaah, safety. And then I talked to some dude from Kansas. I told him, in rather colorful language, about the horrible beeping, the phone call, the dude who kept calling me ma’am, making me feel old and stupid. He told me the phone call was being recorded and if I could please stop swearing so much. Kansans. So sensitive. And then he helped me make sure my computer hadn’t been compromised! In the meantime, however, something really awkward happened.

Okay, so in order to make sure that I hadn’t gotten any of that evil malware (dun dun DUUUUN!) we had to go clear my history in all the browsers. So I have this guy — he told me to call him D because he said his name is hard to pronounce but I saw it written there and it didn’t look that hard to me but whatever, I had already insulted him by assaulting his ears with my potty mouth — and he is sharing my screen. I have my normal little cursor and D has this little red arrow and he keeps moving it around the screen, pointing to things. It’s really cute, the arrow. At this moment I am thinking to myself, wow, it’s a really good thing I don’t watch totally fucked up porn on my computer because that would be incredibly awkward. Like, imagine if I was into some weird shit involving barnyard animals and he would be all like

“Yea, I think there is some malware attached to this video of someone fucking a cow in the barn”

and I’d have to be like

“I guess that makes sense. Okaythankyougoodbye.”

and then I would hide under my covers for the rest of time. There was nothing like that on there because I do not watch porn involving barnyard animals. Or other kinds of animals, for that matter. Or, if we’re being completely honest, porn at all because I am so nervous about accidentally watching malware porn and having to talk to someone on the phone while we both pretend to not be seeing what is right in front of our faces. I really like my life and would prefer not to spend the rest of it hiding in my room from some dude I talked to on the phone one time who I will never ever see or speak to again and who has undoubtedly seen much worse. Also, as a feminist, I have some issues with a lot of mainstream pornography but that’s a story for another day. Moving on. We go into my history and there it is,

“BLAH BLAH BLAH PORN BLAH BLAH BLAH”

And at that moment I realize that I had just been reading an article about how Stoya had accused her ex-boyfriend James Deen of rape. Both of these people work in the adult film industry and this was especially surprising and problematic because James Deen has always been heralded by feminist media as one of the good guys. And Stoya is kind of awesome. She writes articles about the adult film industry that I think are incredibly helpful in adding nuance and complexity into our understanding of sex work. Obviously the titles of the articles about Stoya’s accusations aren’t things like

“Adult film actress Stoya accuses her ex-boyfriend James Deen of rape”

or

“Famous woman accuses famous man of rape and we all wait for more accusations to follow because they pretty much always do”

or

“Intimate partner rape is a real thing and we need to talk about it.”

No. The title is

“BLAH BLAH BLAH PORN BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!!”

And so I am sitting in my room on the phone with some dude named D who doesn’t like when people swear staring at this rather incriminating-seeming list of porn-related searches in my history. I turn bright red and look towards my bed, debating the merits of just putting the phone down and accepting my future. Instead I decide to try and explain it to him. So I’m like

“Yea, so I was on this ‘feminist’ website that actually is horrible and I never read it any more only I decided to read it today and they had a link to a story about this film star Stoya and this is sort of a big deal because people are always on about James Deen and I was thinking, like, of course the dude we all think is a good dude is actually a rapist. That just figures. And so I had to go read more about it because I was curious and now you’re some dude I don’t know and it looks like I have all this fucked up shit on my computer and this is my worst nightmare!”

To which D was like

“Rebekah, I really need you to stop cursing.”

And then I felt two levels of shame. I had the much-feared, and in this case misplaced, porn shame (which we shouldn’t feel because whatever who cares) but then also the potty mouth shame. It was awful. I cleared the history in silence. And then I made a few bad jokes. And then D announced that my computer was just fine and I had nothing to worry about at all and I thanked him for his help and we had a laugh about our conversation and then I hung up and stared at the wall. And then in an effort to feel productive I called New York Sports Club to sign up for my class and to tell them that their website had been compromised and it had sent me on this crazy adventure but that they shouldn’t worry, I was not going to be hiding under my covers. Instead, I was going to attend spin class in the morning. Silence on the other end. I had said too much.

So that’s the end. The whole debacle took so long that I didn’t end up going for a run. I did tell my friend about the whole fiasco and he said that explaining everything probably made me sound more guilty and I should have just left well enough alone. And whatever, the dude on the phone probably wasn’t reading my search history anyway. I called bullshit. I would read the shit out of someone’s search history. You’d have to be a saint not to. Or else not be curious at all. And where’s the fun in that?

Tags: Apple Care, awkward moment, Boise, computer virus, customer service, James Deen, malware, pornography, Stoya