Scott Hanselman

Caught in the Act

July 06, 2007 Comment on this post [8] Posted in Musings
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My wife caught me. I knew I shouldn't have been doing it, but she was sleeping and I figured, what was the harm? It's a victimless crime.

It was late, I was *engrossed* and suddenly the door opened! I'd been thinking about doing this all day and had finally found a quiet opening. I couldn't get it off my mind, I just needed to finish this thing up.

She was awake and coming to check her email. I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't happy. It was that mixed look of shock and disappointment that you never want to see.

"Scott David!" she exclaimed, "What are you doing? Why couldn't you talk to me first!" What could I say, I was violating that one thing that one must not violate in a relationship. I tried to cover things up but the damage was already done.

I had her personal computer opened up, ribbon cables everyone, guts spread all over the room, trying to upgrade the system's memory.

This is an even worse situation than the first time I tried to replace the main TV remote control with one from Radio Shack. At least that turned out OK in the end.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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July 06, 2007 3:51
At least you weren't "borrowing" the memory from her computer... I got caught doing that to my wife's computer.
July 06, 2007 13:16
I had to buy a machine for my wife that I was sworn to leave alone after too many incidents of her coming in to check email to find that the computer had a different operating system installed or was in pieces and all she had to do to switch it on was to "poke her finger into a box of electrics attached to the mains".

That machine is now running 2Gb RAM (up from the 512Mb it arrived with) and has a hard drive 4 times bigger than the original. If you are going to break the trust that binds your marriage together then the trick is just to not get caught. Unlucky one Scott.
July 06, 2007 15:24
I just did the research and then told my wife which laptop to buy. Problem solved :-)
July 06, 2007 16:20
You got caught? Things like this are the reason I work from home once a week - complete peace and quiet to get myself into trouble with. He first words upon walking in the door on a "work from home" day are always "Ok, what do you need to tell me before I figure it out for myself?"

It never a problem before you do it, and rarely one after. It's those precious minutes in the middle that cause all the trouble...
July 06, 2007 19:23
Oh oh Scott

I guess you're in big trouble. I've done the same myself in the past and it always seems to lead to bad things.

And we're trying to do is be helpful. What drives us to this? Somehow knowing I have a criminal partner now makes me feel better. :-)
July 06, 2007 19:56
My wife and I have been together long enough that she just asks, "How long is it going to be before I can use it and can we afford a new one if you can't fix it?
July 06, 2007 20:17
I once swapped out a video card on my wife's computer when she wasn't looking. Almost got away with it too.

Then one day the video card starting dying and she asked me why she was seeing all these psychedelic colors and weird screen movement on her computer while using MS Word. I had to come clean at that point. Since then I was banned from touching her computer's hardware.

That didn't stop me from installing Vista RTM on her machine to play with it though...however that soon got me banned from her computer all together :(
July 06, 2007 22:23
;). And as the infamously Luddite daughter of an early computer geek, with three computer geek brothers, I established going into my marriage that there would be a "my" computer and a "his" computer.

For a while, it almost worked ;).

And to be fair, he never once bungled it up so it wouldn't work. I just don't deal well with changed interfaces.

(Sucess was later found when he handed off his old computer to me: he no longer had any interest in "playing" with this one. So I get one that works reliably, which is all I want in a machine, and he gets the satisfaction of knowing he took it to its limit already.)


Scott, lovely send up of a sexual confessional ;).

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.