By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Today we will discuss a genuine, old-fashioned miracle in the scientific age of technology. It is true that my grasp of technology is on the kindergarten level. So I feel compelled to shout in praise of old-fashioned miracles and those who bestow them.

You see, my personal computer at home screamed at me last week. It was the piercing shriek of a soul in agony. If anything sends a chill down my spine, it is a surly, obstinate computer. The blank screen stared at me in a sullen snit while the computer screamed. I felt helpless.

Computers are workers of magic so long as they obey. When they quit, we are hurled into the Stone Age chiseling out our deathless prose with a hammer stone. Creativity comes to a halt.

The whole operation is a crap shoot. You are running on blind faith at the mercy of hostile strangers with memories of being scalped before. Calling ahead doesn't help because you can't understand what the technician tells you.

I climbed around the desk and carefully unhooked the wires, hoping I'd remember where to put them back. Then I lifted the computer up in preparation to carrying it on the elevator down to my car in the condo parking lot. Hmmm ... the darned thing seemed a lot heavier than it had been before.

No problem. I got out my handy City Mill dolly for just such emergencies and trundled my computer down the hall to the elevator. Half an hour later, I pulled into the CompUSA parking lot.

To my amazement, there was no line. A pleasant fellow with some gray in his hair came around the tech counter and said, "Let me help you with that. What's the trouble?"

"It screams at me," I explained.

At this point, a young man a third of my age and with a bored expression usually begins to babble at me in a strange language. This fellow just plugged in my computer and turned it on. The light blinked obediently. No scream. It worked like a charm. I felt like an idiot.

"Why does it scream at me at home?" I asked, expecting more psychobabble.

"Sometimes a termite gets inside or a connection gets a speck of rust."

"I'd really like to have it checked out before I take it back," I said, expecting him to pull out the forms that take 20 minutes to fill out and cost $100 just to stay in the game.

"Let me take it to the shop and try it."

A few minutes later he stuck his head out and waved me in. My computer behaved like a lamb and purred like a kitten. The technician refused to let me pay him. His name is Michael Waters. He performs old-fashioned miracles in the age of technology.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.