Hi. I'm Tonya. I've worked the help desk at a big insurance company in Hartford since 1988. I have seen every problem a computer can have. I have reseated a thousand cables. I have fished a paper clip out of a floppy drive with tweezers. I have asked "is it plugged in?" so many times that I say it in my sleep, and my husband has started answering.

Ninety-nine calls out of a hundred are loose wires, full hard drives, or somebody's coffee. But every so often a call comes in that I can't explain. The machine is doing something no machine should do. The user is pale. The dog won't go in the room.

Those are the calls this page is about. Check your machine against the list below. If you score more than five, back away slowly, and call your help desk. Not mine. I'm on lunch.

1. The little paper clip in Word asks if you'd like help writing a letter, and you haven't opened Word.
2. Your 56K modem connects at exactly 666 bps, every time, and seems pleased about it.
3. You take the ball out of your mouse to clean it. The next morning, it's back in.
4. Minesweeper tells you where all the mines are. Then it moves them.
5. Files you drag to the Recycle Bin come back the next day, a little angrier.
6. Solitaire deals you the same hand every time, and you lose it every time, and the cards look smug.
7. The computer won't boot until you say please.
8. A new item has appeared on your Start menu. It's called Stop.
9. The hourglass flips over when it runs out and starts again. You've been waiting since Tuesday.
10. Your hard drive clicks in a pattern, and your cousin who was in the Navy says it's Morse code for your name.
11. The fan in the back spins the other way, and the room gets colder.
12. Every file you save is dated January 1, 1900, and it's not a Y2K thing. You checked.
13. The monitor still glows a little after you turn it off, and it's watching the door.
14. Instead of one short beep at startup, it plays the first few notes of a funeral march.
15. When you click "Cancel," a box pops up that says "Are you sure?" Then "Are you REALLY sure?" Then "You'll be sorry."
16. Your keyboard starts typing in a language the reference librarian says hasn't been spoken in nine hundred years.
17. You call tech support. The hold music is you, humming.
18. ScanDisk found thirteen bad sectors, arranged in a circle.
19. The screen saver used to be flying toasters. Now it's flying toasters that look worried.
20. You named your hard drive C: and it asked to be called something else.
21. The printer prints one page every night at 3:00 a.m. It's blank. But it's warm.
22. It only crashes when your mother-in-law is visiting. (All right, this one might just be good judgment.)
23. The CD-ROM drive plays a CD you don't own.
24. The dog won't go in the computer room. The cat won't come out.
25. It works perfectly the minute I show up to look at it. (Every single computer I have ever met does this. Draw your own conclusions.)

Level 1 Exorcism Procedures, as practiced by the Help Desk:

1. Is it plugged in? Is it plugged in all the way? Look again.
2. Turn it off. Count to ten. Turn it back on. This cures more possessions than you'd think.
3. Run ScanDisk. Then Defrag. Then go get a sandwich, because Defrag is going to be a while.
4. Update your virus scanner. I'm serious about this one. A lot of "haunted" computers are just infected computers.
5. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete once, and only once, and look at what's running. Anything you don't recognize, write it down and ask somebody before you end it.
6. Do NOT pour holy water, or any other liquid, into the computer. I have to say this because of a gentleman in Claims.
7. If none of that works, call me. I'll come over, and it'll work perfectly. See sign #25.