Here’s a typical scene between us: (It usually takes place at three in the morning after I’ve noticed the empty spot beside me in bed)

I wander sleepily into the den. I find him, shoulders hunched, eyes red-rimmed and glassy, nose only inches from the computer screen, tapping furiously on the keyboard.
"Honey, what are you doing? It’s three in the morning. Come to bed."

"In a minute. I’ve got it this time. All I have to do is reconfigure the expistolator to interface with narfshooter and then the emmolator disc matrix will work perfectly!" <continued below>
 

"Okay, as long as I can check my e-mail in the morning."

As I head back to bed, I hope the tortured "Arrrrrghhh!" I hear doesn’t mean the address book got erased again.

Usually, on the morning after one of these wee-hour exchanges, I have to explain to the four year old that "Daddy’s been working on the computer again." I’ll watch tears well up in my son’s eyes as he realizes his Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street CD-ROM games are lost to him for at least a week.

When my husband actually meets up face-to-face with one of his computer loving buddies, the conversations are even more peculiar:

"Hey, John, Sammy told me that if I’d just adjust the horizontal keflex module 684k on my Fertsnurf cordex the Hoosegow px61 would run even faster!"

"Oh yeah. Like THAT would work! Har, har, har. The Hoosegow px61 CAN’T go any faster! You should have bought the Expatriate cordex hormodifier in the first place!" <continued below>

Every "I know more about computers and mine is better than yours and I paid less" contest begins with this kind of exchange, with only small variations. I compare them to the old " My dad can beat up your dad" or the "My car is faster than yours" arguments of yesteryear.

Still, I don’t complain about my husband’s computer hobby too much. At least he’s home if I need him to do something. I’ve found withholding the latest copy of his favorite computer magazine until he fixes the sink usually works pretty well. Thunking him on the head with one of his five-inch-thick HTML how-to books is equally effective.

He’s so cute, too, when he bounds up to me, excitedly waving a sale paper and saying, "Look, Honey! The Hacker House has Gloob-gissel ultra-model combutrons on sale for only seven hundred dollars! It would make the computer sooooooo much better! Can I get one? Pleeease? Pleeease?"

Smiling, I hand him the credit card, knowing this new piece of gadgetry will have him cursing and fuming and staying up late for weeks. But, how can I deny the big guy something that will make him so happy?