Why? There is no why.

As a computer technician I struggle to find the proper parallel to my career. Metaphors there are plenty of, like "I am the dung beetle of the cubes. Others take in good stuff, and I make my living dealing with the problems they make from that."

I am not like a firefighter, a doctor, a lawyer, baker or candle stick maker. The best I have come up with is detective.

I don't mean the cool yet inwardly turmoiled crew of a Crime Scene Investigation unit. No, just a plainclothes cop who has to derive meaning from a few clues left there.

And like the more unglamorous aspects of that honorable profession I too must shake down the usual suspects; the client and the computer. This has the normal fun associated with trying to figure out where the cat started to throw up after discovering the trail in bare feet.

The most commonly useless question I am asked when attempting to restore order and peace to the network is "Why do you think it happened?"

Frankly my dear, I don't give a posterior of a Rattus. I honestly don't care why your wallpaper changed from cute puppy to inappropriate and scarring image. I lose no sleep upon the mystery of the missing desktop icons. My brain is not preyed upon by questions on the re-ordering of your favorites.

I do my job, which is undo what you did, doing what you shouldn't, which now keeps you from doing what you are supposed to.

Every once in a while I do care though. Once in a while.

A year and a half ago I was called out to a computer that was, in their own words, "Typing on its own."

Riiight. Was this before or after the pixies and elves made themselves familiar with your bottle of hooch in your desk drawer?

I went over immediately as the suspicion was a virus. I arrived to save the day and ran the client through the usual battery of questions. What was the last thing you did? What were you trying to do? Can you tie your own shoelaces? Innie or Outie?

I sat down and tried to re-create the problem. No more maddening a task there is but an inconsistent problem with a computer. If you can break it again, you can fix it.

Nothing happened. I was about to help myself to their stash in the desk when I uttered "Looks like nothing is happening."

And it typed. On its own.

"What the... There it is again! And again! Those are all words but that is one crazy sentence."

I tried at least a dozen of my best incantations and hexes on the beast (The computer). Nothing. It continued to mock me with what looked like the screenplay plot of the second half of 2001 Space Odyssey.

It was only during a perplexed pause that the answer became clear: The computer typed when I talked.

Somehow the client had managed to activate the "Voice-to-Text" option on their computer. This was an occasion to find out how on earth they had done that.

I could not think of a better practical joke than that one, and I had to know how to do it to an unsuspecting co-worker.