THERE ARE PARTS of the world where you stand in line for three hours just to buy a tomato, and then there's the good old USA, where just about anything will be delivered right to your door, including a geek to fix your computer.
This is the thought that occurs to me in the living room of Iris and Jim Willett, a retired couple who live in Brooklyn Park, as we watch Chris Isham from the computer trouble-shooting service Geeks on Call geek around with their PC.
"The scanner wasn't working," Isham explains. "It was loading error messages. I just reloaded the scanner. Now I'm trying to test the port for the scanner."
Oh.
To be honest, this is way more information than the Willetts and I can absorb, as is Isham's next pronouncement that he is "checking the Windows registry and Windows-MS config."
See, the Willetts and I don't do Windows registry or Windows-MS config.
Jim Willett, a supervisor at BGE for 41 years, spends his days in his basement woodworking shop and avoids the computer as if it carries anthrax.
Iris Willett, a former medical secretary, uses the computer to stay in touch with friends and make greeting cards and visit Christian chat rooms but confesses she only knows "the basics" of how her Hewlett-Packard Pavilion operates.
This, of course, puts her in the company of only about 99 percent of all the computer owners around the world.
Oh, sure, we all like to think we're computer savvy.
We like to think we're hot stuff because we can retrieve our e-mail and surf the 'Net and download this and that, while the truth is that a slow chimpanzee could do the same thing with 10 minutes of instruction.
But if there's a problem with the motherboard or fatherboard or any of the babyboards, if we need to get rid of a virus or upgrade our operating system or retrieve lost data, that's when we really discover how little we know.
"The average person doesn't know this stuff," whispers Iris Willett as Isham announces he's now "deleting cookies," Web site marks left by companies to track consumers.
There was a time when, if you had computer problems, you'd call one of your geeky friends, and he'd come over and fix it, and you'd give him a beer because you were such a sport.
But now your geeky friends are all working for software manufacturers and making six figures, and they're far too busy taking their Lexuses in for tune-ups to come over and help.
Now when your computer has a problem, you have to call in outside geeks, such as the ones at Geeks on Call, a two-year-old company with 60 franchises in eight states that provides home and business trouble-shooting.
"I'm the IT department for people who don't have an IT department," says Isham.
For the record, Chris Isham does not fit the definition of your garden-variety geek.
He doesn't, for instance, have the pencil neck and the pasty complexion and the wardrobe straight out of the Pee Wee Herman catalog.
In fact, he's a good-looking guy of 34 with a thatch of dark hair, dressed in a hip long-sleeve T-shirt and black corduroys. He's also wearing those fashionable black shoes that look like something the Hell's Angels might use to kick around the poor fool who accidentally backs his car into one of their Harleys.
In May, Isham, who lives in Severna Park with his wife and two kids, opened the first Geeks franchise in the Baltimore area. At first, he was getting one or two calls a week. Now through newspaper ads, word of mouth and the door-signs on the flashy purple PT Cruiser that all Geeks drive, he's averaging two or three calls a day, with home computers accounting for 65 percent of his business.
The thing is, having a Geek come to your house to fix your computer is not exactly like having the plumber in. What's the worst thing the plumber could see, a dirty bathroom?
The Geek, meanwhile, will get a much more intimate look at your life, seeing as how he can sit at your computer and access everything from your bank statements to those sexy e-mails you've been sending your secretary to the various, ahem, "adult entertainment" Web sites you've been accessing.
"I've had more than one mother ask me whether her kid was downloading porn," Isham laughs.
"But," he adds quickly, "we have a strict policy in our company about not disclosing people's personal information, even to other Geeks. The only exception is if it's illegal. For instance, if it involved, say, bomb-making or child pornography. Then we'd report it."
A little over two hours after arriving at the Willetts', Isham's work is done. He has fixed the scanner, configured the start-up items to make the machine start up faster, cleaned out Iris Willett's temporary Internet files and gotten her new fax machine up and running.
The bill comes to $185, which, says Isham, "is a very good deal" for the Willetts, who are repeat customers.
The Willetts must think it's a good deal, too. They're smiling as Isham heads for the door, and how many people smile these days after they've reached for their checkbook?
"It's good to be the hero," Isham says.
Then he climbs back into his PT Cruiser and rides off into the cold, gray afternoon, just another Geek out to save the world, one PC at a time.
To reach Geeks on Call, visit www.geeksoncall.com or call 800-905-GEEK (4335).