Don't mess with the laptop

I hate it when people use my laptop. I hate it when people ask me if they can borrow my laptop for some reason or other--to look up something or to check their email/facebook/whatever. I usually let them anyway, but it drives me crazy. It's somewhat akin to someone casually asking if they can borrow my toothbrush. A big portion of my life is on my laptop: school, research, pictures, documents, email, instant messaging programs, etc. Plus it's the primary medium of communication with my boyfriend that lives across the Atlantic. Due to the timezone difference plus the fact that we both have lives, our opportunities to interact via messenger are limited. When a person that is not me ties up my laptop for some evil design, said boyfriend will almost inevitably message me and then I'm stuck waiting for whoever to finish watching their Youtube clips or check all 7 of their email accounts, or read what all their friends are doing on Facebook before I can answer him. To say the least, it's frustrating.

I use my laptop a lot. For research, recreation, writing on my blog, editing and filing photos, reading stuff online, and occasional programming. One of the things that annoys my brother is that I almost always have on the order of 10 Firefox tabs open at a given time. I'll have one open to my email so I notice when I get a new message, and also so I can gtalk, one open to google reader, one open to drudge report or some type of news site, and various others related to what I'm doing at the time. If I'm in the process of trying to find a good deal on a flight to Copenhagen I'll probably have a few tabs open to some airline search sites. If I'm reading about obscure things on wikipedia, I'll have them open in tabs. If I'm trying to learn how to install linux, I'll have some tab open to articles about that. Well, you get the idea. When I'm done with whatever task it is that I'm looking up, reading about, or working on, I'll close the tabs. The point I'm trying to reach is that every time I let someone use my computer, they close things afterward. It's annoying, and in my opinion kind of rude. It's fine if they want to open a new window, do their thing, and then close it again, but why the heck do they feel the need to completely close out of Firefox before surrendering the computer over to me again? If Firefox was already open when I passed the computer over, doesn't it make sense to leave it open? That's what I do on the rare occasions that I borrow someone else's computer, but maybe I have a more developed sense of laptop borrowing etiquette than most people.

I know this post probably just makes me sound petty and shallow, but mostly because I'm failing to properly express just how much it bothers me when someone else is on my computer, and why. In the past, so as not to seem rude, I've always said "sure!" when asked, and handed the computer over despite my mental protest/screaming. But I've decided to change that. The laptop is mine. I bought it; I use it; it has some very personal/important things stored on it. If it were broken or damaged in some way, I would be very angry and also slightly screwed since I need it for school and to do my research. I don't walk up to Nate and casually ask if I can borrow his fume hoods and chemicals that he uses in the lab so I can mess around with them for my own personal enjoyment. I don't go up to my friend in dental school and ask if I can use his dental tools. So why do I automatically assume that if someone asks me if they can use my laptop, I am under an obligation to say yes or else I'm a horrible person? There are very few, if any, instances when it is critical for someone else to use my laptop. So, from now on, I'm going to say no. If they need it to look up directions on Google Maps, or check what time a store closes, or something fairly urgent, I will do it for them. But I'm not handing it over anymore.