Found Goddesses - Computer Goddesses Part 6 by Barbara Ardinger

Note. The term Found Goddess was created by Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope for their wonderful book, Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera (New Victoria Publishers, 1980). I started Finding goddesses—Nerdix, Compuquia, Hostilia, and Whizziwig—when I was working on a Y2K project for a major corporation. I found the other goddesses described here when I was writing a book on the subject, Finding New Goddesses (ECW Press, 2003). The newest goddesses are Fubar-Ma and Linker Bell, who have just now appeared. Well, maybe they’ve been standing around and/or hovering; I just got them down on paper.

The Computer Goddesses

Because computers embrace and enrich every part of our modern times, we have a Found computer power animal. You guessed it: Mouse. Here is the story of How Mouse Came to Help Us.

One day, Hapless Writer was sitting at her desk, typing happily away. Suddenly—crash! Her computer was out of control!  Every single bit of her formatting was deleted. Pages upon pages of text were ruined. Headers and footers became unstable. Pagination refused to behave itself. Her bulleted lists turned into scrambled numbers. Hapless was extremely unhappy. She began to Speak Firmly to her computer, telling it of her frustration and her expectations.

“Here now,” a voice suddenly said. “What’s all this, then?”  Hapless looked around. Where was that small, crisp voice coming from?

“Yo! Over here.”  And then she saw him, a small gray Being with a long tail. He was sitting on a napkin next to her keyboard. “Pay attention,” the small gray being said.

“But—who are you?”

“My name is Mouse. I’m a power animal. I’m here to help and advise you.”

“Terrific,” said Hapless. “Advice from a rodent. Well, look, Mr. Mouse. I’m all undone. Someone took all my formatting codes. Every bit of my formatting has gone away. I’ve got to go back and redo every tab, every indent, every bold, every italic, every centered line, every font setting, every hard return, every header and footer. And I can’t even find my Reveal Codes!”

“You sure got problems, kid.”

“Drat and imprecation,” she said. “But it’s not my fault. I’m just no good at this Windowstuff. Why can’t I just have my old DOS-based program back? I could do anything with that good old level 5.1.”  Sniffling and snuffling, she looked around. “You know,” she said, peering into the dark corners of the room, “I bet it’s those Thieving Format Fairies! Or that pesky old TipTroll. I deleted him and now he’s getting revenge on me. He cast an evil spell on me. Well, just wait till I get my hands on him!”  And she snuffled again.

Mouse reached into his pocket. “Hey—care for some cheese to go with that whine? No? Well then, listen up. And get real. Wizards or Trolls, they got no power. But me? I got power. Take my advice. Handle one thing at a time. And honor your perceptions.[1] 

Hapless Writer depressed several keys, but nothing happened.

“Kid,” said Mouse, “I can tell your skills are way out of date. You obviously need powerful help.”

“Oh, gimme a break,” said Hapless. “I’m working on it, all right?”

Grooming his ears and whiskers, Mouse leaned forward to read what was on the screen, scrolling up and down until he got the whole story. “You know what, kid? I like what you’re doing here. You’ve got spunk. I think I’ll stick around and help you.”  He sat back to think for a minute, then reached into his other pocket and drew out a shiny silver disk, which he handed to Hapless. “Next time you get into trouble, use this.”

“What is it?”

“Ask someone who knows.”  Refusing to answer any more questions, Mouse spun around three times. “You’ll see me again,” he said.

Then he pronounced Magic Words to exorcise the computer’s archaic operating system: “C:\ DOS. C:\ DOS run. Run, DOS, run. And don’t come back.”  With a smile, he pronounced other Magic Words to instantly install the new operating system: “Logon WIN.”

Next, Mouse waved his paws, making sigils in the air. He flexed his muscles and hunkered down and—lo and behold! His fur became hard and smooth. His tail grew longer and longer and still longer.  “Use me to select commands and perform tasks,” he said. “Drag and click,” he said. “I’ll never be farther away than your hand is from your wrist,” he said. And those were his last words.

As Hapless Writer watched in amazement, Mouse began to shiver and shimmer and glow. And then, with a power surge that dimmed every light in the city, he mutated into the handy, hand-sized plastic power tool that we use to this very day. And to this very day, we are indeed selecting and clicking and dragging to perform our tasks.

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.