I did it. I bought a MacBook. I was still waffling, but first I saw that you could get a free iPod with your purchase, and then someone else told me that they were offering a free printer, too, and then my husband pointed out that we could use his educational discount. My bargain-loving self clung tightly to “free” and “discounted” and ignored the other numbers and before I knew it, I was stalking the FedEx guy.

I ordered it before the holiday weekend, which was just silly. I had to wait all weekend! Agony! But yesterday it finally arrived.

It does all sorts of wonderful things. Most notably, it does not lock up every time I do more than open a single Firefox window (which I consider an excellent bonus over my ailing desktop), and it does not randomly click the mouse in strange places (as my old laptop is wont to do). And F12 brings up all my little tool thingies like the weather and a calculator! And F11 puts all the windows away! And F10 does this cool tiling thing with my seventy gazillion Firefox windows so I can see which one I want! But mostly it is very shiny. I like shiny things.

Know what else I like? I like that I can take it with me to the kids’ piano lessons, and hook right into the teacher’s wireless and get another hour of work done. Bliss. We did the inaugural run yesterday and I finished two articles while my kids tormented the teacher. Erm, I mean, while my children furthered their educations in music appreciation. (Oh, I don’t know what they did. I was too busy configuring this. Now when I’m wasting time while I should be working, I have a little green duck that flaps his wings on my screen to alert me to someone who wants to help me procrastinate. And that right there is worth the price of the machine, no?

I kid. Saying goodbye to the blue screen of death is worth the price of the machine. But I do like that green duck. And the Photo Booth program. And the fact that I don’t need a back brace to lift it.

It is nearly worth the gloating that my Mac-devoted husband has been doing every since it arrived. He keeps showing me tips and tricks and smirking every time I go “Wow, that’s so cool!” He hasn’t said “I told you so” a single time, yet. I predict by this weekend he won’t be able to contain himself, but for now, he’s enjoying watching me work in blissful silence—so utterly unlike my previous evenings where I spent a lot of time yelling at the computer and possibly banging my mouse on the desk like some sort of crazy person. Now I just… type. And work. And the computer does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

That is, when I can stop playing with it and concentrate on my work.

Did I mention that it’s awfully shiny?

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