So, I walked 4 kilometres along the balmy winter coastline to buy a new one.
A sign of the times is that the computer section is always packed, while upstairs, where the books are kept, it is as dead as a dodo, other than the likes of me and a few women with dancing eyes leafing through Mills & Boon. Whenever I go up there, the Indian salesman leaps to his feet, brushes cobwebs from his specs and welcomes me as if his bosom buddy.
On Wednesday, in unfamiliar PC territory, I spent half an hour umming and ahhing before prayer time got us all kicked outside for a further half an hour. Out there, watching Bangladeshis round up trolleys for Panda supermarket, I smoked, ummed and ahhed a bit more, then went back inside and plumped for a slim-line, super-lightweight Netbook (whatever that means) whose price – cheap in the tax free sand - would be covered by the 1000 riyals a colleague had finally returned as part of a loan dating from June.
“I have to finance my wife,” was his baffling excuse. I didn't ask for details and won’t hold my breath for the remaining grand ($266), but hopefully it will arrive before I quit or get fired. Whatever comes first.
Back at home, feverishly unwrapping the box, like a kid at Christmas, packaging flying everywhere, I found out that it didn't bloody work – surely a pertinent metaphor for the territory as a whole.
The next day, back in the store, I found myself in a long line of people with similarly malfunctioning contraptions. Finally being attended to, I was told, as were the rest of the queue, that it would have to be sent to a service centre in Riyadh and that would take at least 2 weeks before being returned. For Christ’s sake, it wasn't even 24 hours old!
As a result, the weekend has been PC free, and, I have to say, all very pleasant – admittedly helped by fantastic weather. I rode my bike under blue skies, buffeted by a cool breeze; read a lot (Kipling’s Jungle Book); dug out a notepad and wrote on paper; laughed at the insanity of CNN’s news coverage; and got a haircut from a Turk doing a great impression of Mr. Bean with a moustache. He even trimmed my eyebrows.
For abnormally long periods I found myself staring out of the window at a tree; re-arranged my books; plucked nasal hair; and gauged how much stuff I’d take with me when I do get out of the freaking sand.
I also went to bed early and rose early, walking round the neighbourhood, engaged in stretching exercises. I even gave the flat a good sweep. If I’d had a computer, that chore would have certainly been ignored in favour of spider solitaire.
In fact I did get the old one fixed, not because of withdrawal symptoms but I had remembered stuff on there that I needed, and the clued up Philipino repair man told me that the average age of a PC is five years.
“But for many Saudis it is usually one or two months,” he added with a wry smile.
“How’s that?”
“They destroy them.”
“Yeah,” I thought, “Even before they’re out of the box.”