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CPTD Disorder
CPTD
The scourge of modern man...by CAROL JOHNSON
This is the day and age of the "psychological disorder." It seems we are
all afflicted with something, be it co-dependency, attention deficit
disorder, agoraphobia, etc. Therefore, I hate to call the world's
attention to a new one, but this new disease's sick grasp is grabbing so
many victims these days, I'm afraid I must take the bad news to the
public.
People are finding they can no longer function in their daily lives.
Marriages are being ripped apart. Children are finding their world
irretrievably altered. It's all because of the ghastly grip of CPTD,
Computer Parts Trading Disorder.
In order to leave you better informed of the facts in this gruesome
disease, I will try to answer some of the most commonly asked questions.
Remember, however, that this affliction can prove deadly to some and you
must be certain to seek out the advice of a professional at any cost
(no, this doesn't mean the services of your local Internet Provider).
Symptoms
How can you tell if your loved one suffers from CPTD?
Ask yourself these questions:
* Do you find that, more and more, your loved one is associating with
people whose computer room consists of wall to wall assorted computer
parts and there is not a completed computer in sight?
* Does the computer room in your own home look this same way?
* If you do have a "whole" computer in your home, do the components in
it change more than once a week?
* When you least expect it, do you find that the computer at home-which
formerly had a measly 100 meg hard drive and 14-inch interlaced
monitor-now sports a shiny new 20-inch non-interlaced monitor and a 2GB
hard drive?
* Do you find that I/O boards, modems, sound cards and controllers have
replaced cooking utensils in the kitchen junk drawer?
* Can you no longer park your car in the garage because it is filled to
the brim with old CGA monitors and a few mondo-turbo mega-cases with
room for 30 drives?
* Has your loved one recently purchased a pickup truck which he fills
regularly with strange boxes that say "XT," "AT" and "286"?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, there is a good chance
your loved one suffers from CPTD.
Grisly Side-effects
How can CPTD affect the lives and family of those who suffer from the
Disorder?
The person who suffers from CPTD often becomes so obsessed with trading
computer parts that common value flies out the window.
Take the example of Mike (not his real name). He learned that someone in
town was clearing out all of his used computer parts. (It turns out that
the seller's wife gave him an ultimatum: It was her or the parts. She
won: old motherboards can't cook or take care of the kids.) For the
outstanding price of 16MB of RAM he could have the entire garage full,
approximately 40 boxes! How could Mike turn this one down? He had some
30-pin SIMMs he was no longer using. He raided the kids machine. Why did
they need more than 2MB anyway? And he traded a 2X CD-ROM that he
planned to give his son for his birthday (it was still three weeks off
and how well would it run on only 2 meg of RAM?) for the rest. After six
truck loads, he got all the loot home. He was like a kid who had
unearthed a pirate's treasure. He soon discovered that he had bought 40
boxes of 1200 baud modems, XT motherboards, daisy wheel printers (serial
port connections, of course), and 10MB notebook hard drives. His wife
was devastated. How could he have been so easily ripped off? But he was
as pleased as punch: Just think of all the things he could trade all
this stuff for!
The CPTD-afflicted individual begins to base his (it's usually, though
not always, a he) entire social life around the acquisition of computer
parts:
* A big day out becomes a trek to the huge computer swap meet in
Gresham or the local computer auction in Eugene.
* Getting together with friends consists of going through each other's
stuff to see what you can swap.
* Thoughtful and romantic gestures take the form of escorting her to
garage sales so he can look for components.
The family begins to feel rejected and replaced by the obsession. It
starts out when the laundry room becomes the store room for all the
monochrome monitors picked up at an auction. It grows worse as the
twelve boxes of 5.25-inch floppy controllers take over the bedroom. When
the kid's rooms can no longer hold their toys because all their storage
space is used for the 20MB hard drives someone traded, the family is in
real trouble. When the dog house becomes the 286 warehouse, it's too
late and it's time to move out.
Getting Help
How can I help my loved one fight the grip of this gruesome disease?
I wish I could give you the name of a good 12-step program or a famous
therapist who specializes in CPTD, but as far as I know, I can't. I am
the only one who has identified this disorder, and it may take a while
for the rest of the world to catch up.
In the meantime, may I suggest loving family intervention and cutting
the "sicko" off from the source of his addiction. Mike's wife will
attest that this method worked very well for her, although the private
detective she has had to hire to make sure he doesn't back-slide has
been expensive. Someone else suggested hiring a security guard to
support the afflicted's resolve, but that can get costly as well.
Those of us who are less than wealthy must settle for searching pockets
for CPUs and underwear drawers for hard drives. The best advice I can
give you is-
(The rest of this article is unavailable due to the untimely
disappearance of the author's hard drive and monitor. She has been left
to wonder what her husband will bring home in their place. -ed)
This article was originally published in the October 1996 issue of
Computer Bits magazine, and is copyright � 1996 by Bitwise Productions,
Inc., Forest Grove, OR, (503) 359-9107. All rights reserved. Disclaimer:
Archival material is provided as-is. Links are not maintained.
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