Elvis Has Left the Building --
And Is Living In My Computer

by Janelle Meraz Hooper

Elvis is still alive. I know it. I have proof. And I don't mean the kind of proof where some guy who's had too much beer stops at a local filling station and sees Elvis filling up his Eldorado with regular gas. What a joke. Everyone knows that Elvis uses super.

And I don't mean like that guy outside of the basketball arena waving a sign that says, "Elvis parks here." Everyone knows that Elvis is way too cool for basketball.

No, I'm talking about tangible down-to-earth evidence that the King of Rock n' Roll is alive and well -- and living in my computer.

Yep. That's what I said. Right here in my computer that I call Ole Trigger because he doesn't have enough guts to boot up all of my fancy equipment on the same day, much less at the same time.

Whenever I want to do anything more complicated than word-processing, I have to load the color printer, print, delete the non-color printer and drivers, and let Ole Trigger rest for a day or so. Then I can load the color scanner, do my scanning, delete the scanner from my hard drive, re-load the non-color printer and its drivers, and let Trigger rest again for a couple of days until it feels up to fetching my emails. Sometimes, if my preacher cousin sends me a long message, Ole Trigger just gets all tuckered out and has to be rebooted. I keep a special pair of cowboy boots next to my PC just for this purpose.

As far as I can tell, Elvis moved into my computer a few days before
the Fourth of July. That's when I sent a color poster of Elvis to my editor, who's an Elvis fan, wishing her Happy Fourth! It was a photo that showed Elvis in all his glory: gold metallic suit, slick pompadour hair, and white buck shoes.

Of course he had that special look of his on his face, like he'd just
jammed a guitar pick up his nose and was wondering if he wanted to get it out or just leave it there because it felt good. It was pure, vintage Elvis, and I blew it up full size before I sent it to her via email. I should have known something had gone wrong when she said she never got it. Come to find out: that's because he never left!

He took up 486 bits or bytes or whatever that stuff is called, but he
was kind of cool, so I didn't delete him right away like I should have. A
few days later, I began to find strange messages on my computer when I brought up my screen in the morning. Messages like, "Warning! Your memory system is running dangerously low. Norton antivirus system may not be working correctly." Oh, happy 99! Oh, Melissa!

I went into Trigger's guts and started deleting everything that wouldn't make me stop breathing if I didn't have it. I even deleted-augh!-Elvis,
but the messages kept coming: "Warning, warning! Danger! Danger!"

The next time I used my graphics software, I noticed that Elvis was
still on the menu. I deleted him. He came back. I deleted him again. He came back again. By now, his lips were starting to move, and his suit was beginning to shimmer. I don't know why he doesn't leave, except that maybe he's finally found someplace to hide out where people have to leave him alone -- sort of like having Heartbreak Hotel all to himself, maybe.

For myself, I've given up and just deleted Norton. I know when I'm
beat. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up and hear a lonesome voice in my computer singing, "Ho-oold me close, ho-oold me tight . . . make me thri-illll with dee-lighttt . . . ."

Sure beats anything I ever heard from Norton.

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Copyright © 2001-2007 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:
Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002, and is the first of a trilogy. The second in the trilogy, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, will be out in October, 2003.
In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

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