Remember when? Office Edition

A quickie note: I did a Health update up above. Now back to normally scheduled post.

Remember when computers weighed 100 pounds? You know, there was the CPU, the big ol' monitor, and the Herculean dot matrix printer with its high-pitched whine as it churned out each stinking line painstakingly at 150 decibels. And it was a 10 page paper I had to print at 6am, so it took about 20 minutes for the dot matrix to do its thing, all the while I'm trying to muffle the stupid thing (unsuccessfully) by closing the door and stuffing blankets at the gap at the bottom of the door. The whole computer set-up took up a massive-sized desk; in fact, the desk was so massive that it couldn't fit in my bedroom, so it had to be in the spare bedroom. Ah, remember that? I'm kind of sad that Julia will never know a dot matrix printer because that was a true sight (and auditory experience) to behold.

The massive computer set-up ended up with its own room anyway, so why not shove all your filing cabinets in there to make it even more official? And while you're at it, put in a few bookcases, a case to hold your 5" floppy disks, a few pictures, a comfy chair (or, for the men, a leather swivel chair that reclines). By George, you now have a fully functional OFFICE!

And now there are the concepts of affordable laptops, wireless internet, and it seems like it could be the beginning of the end for the home office. At least for us. We technically have a den, and there is a desk in there... a wedding picture on the desk...a chair...and that's it, folks. Oh, I put a tiny filing cabinet in there too.

My laptop lives next to my side of the bed unless I move it to to the couch or wherever I'm painting. We use Rubbermaid filing drawers for what little files we have. Most stuff is available electronically, so I don't keep many hard copies of things. When we back up our computer files (hint, hint, husband dear), we keep the back-up in a small safe. Hence, we don't really need an office, per se. We still haven't set up a printer in this house since PDF'ing and cell phones with internet have pretty much eliminated the need to print things out.

My husband tried. One weekend he put his laptop on the desk in the office. I think he even tried to type there until he realized he was far away from everyone, and he didn't like having to sit upright in the desk chair. The experiment only lasted a few days, and then he was back on the couch or the bed with his laptop. I admire him. I didn't even try to experiment with using the official desk. Why? I knew it would end in disappointment. But if I had that dot matrix, maybe THAT would lure me into the office.