I thought it would be fun to walk down memory lane and talk about some of my more memorable customers. I’ve been repairing Macs and PC’s for 20 plus years out of a retail store front and have some crazy stories.

The man we called Cheetos

At the start of my retail days I had a customer come through the door who complained about his laptop overheating. In those days laptops were called desktop replacements because they used desktop hardware in a laptop body. Anyways, every crevice of the laptop was filled with fluorescent orange cement. The stuff was impenetrable. With the laptop completely apart I had one of my employees chip away the crusty material until most of it was gone.

At the end of the night when we decided it was an endless battle to keep chipping away I made the call to fill a tub with soap and water and let all the parts soak overnight. The next morning the water was an orange color but the plastic was completely clean. We reassembled the laptop and called the customer. After going through our work, my employee asked him what the mystery material was. He gestured putting his hand a bag of chips then licking his fingers as he exclaimed he really likes Cheetos.

Tunnel vision

Engineers have always been a staple of my business. Way back in the Windows 95 and 98 days a guy came in with his computer and demonstrated how it wasn’t fast enough for his project. He started an animation and took me on a virtual tour of a giant tunnel. In a couple weeks from then he was due to be in China with his computer to present this giant tunnel to his customers. He had a deadline and needed my little company to come through.

I remember ordering the latest graphics card, memory and the fastest hard drive I could find. In order to get it with enough time to meet his deadline everything was shipped overnight. After he returned from China he gave me the good news that he earned the contract. Over the past 20 or so years I’ve built him many iterations of that first machine. Interestingly enough, that first machine is sitting in my spare room and is loaded with video games from that era.

Mr. Render Farmer

I have always tried to keep used systems on the shelf and loved when customers would come back for more. Well, there was this one guy who kept buying from me. I’m talking 3-4 at a time. There were days he would buy whatever I had in stock. One day I asked what he was doing with all these computers and rather than explain it to me he invited me to his house.

With the flip of a switch the lights in the garage dimmed as hundreds of computers started at the same time. One directly on the other, five to ten high going up each wall. Behind the menagerie of computers was a tangled mess of electrical cords. He explained he was building a super computer with enough power to compete with NASA. I graciously excused myself after the first waft of smoking wires and never followed up with him to find out if his idea worked.

Pizza delivery

Perhaps the most disgusting was a local pizza restaurant that would always bring a pizza when the job was done. This place had the reputation of being the best in the area by using fresh local ingredients and a great recipe. What can I say? It was nice getting a free pizza delivered.

About midway through the repair my technician asked to help identify something in the computer. With the help of the internet we identified the black stuff as rat droppings. Not mice, but rats. After our work was done and we called the customer we were asked what type of pizza we wanted that day. The technician explained to the customer that we changed our policy and no longer accept food from customers.

To this day I don’t take food from customers because of this guy and his rat infested computer.

Red Shirt Mafia

Of the most bizarre was an older gentleman who used to come in wearing a red polo shirt covered by another shirt. It didn’t matter the weather, this guy would always have on two shirts with the red one underneath. This went on for many months and he brought us many different laptops. Each time he had a different story.

We ran out of paper and I was asked to stock up. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the guy with all the laptops was working the desk at the local office box store. When asked why he was bringing us his business he explained, “you’re half the price we are and can fix them faster.” After that I asked him to just bring me the computers without covering up his identity.

While I’ve been typing this bizarre stories and jobs have been going through my head. I think it would be fun to tell some of those in the next few weeks.

Jeromy is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc located in Gardner and Greenfield MA. https://www.LocalComputerWiz.com