The Dell

I get a lot of flack from the household about being addicted to the internet. Between being on 'the boards' discussing autism issues, just looking at the news and blogging, I do spend an inordinate amount of time surfing. But my wife and kids have taken it to another level, identifying an entity for which I am enamored to...the 'Dell'.
My Dell is not really mine, but my work computer. But it sits open and running on the dining room table, 3 hours a day during the week and probably 16 hours on weekends. I relate with what Homer Simpson once said of TV the same thing I feel for the internet: "Television: teacher, mother... secret lover! ...". My computer is in competition for time and, to a certain extent, affection with my wife and kids. I have no qualms about admitting it, it's good to admit you have an addiction.
My wife and her mother describe it as my 'pacifier'. Jason has seen an opening in my attentions towards Linda and is making his moves on my wife. They love to ask me the question "If you were stuck on a desert island, would you rather have your wife or your Dell with you. My answer is obvious: the Dell, because then I could contact someone to get OFF the island! So many permutations have been gone through on this, finally my son pointed out that the battery would go dead (No mention of the lack of a wireless router or even electricity!).
We've had several near misses with the Dell getting fried. Grace and Liv have made 'purposeful' spills very close to it; it's in a dangerous spot to begin with. Liquid spills are a fact of life at the dinner table. Also, Grace has a fascination with pushing that button until the power goes off, maybe she's trying to tell me something.
The Dell's getting old, not the age...the mileage. It's missing the F9 key, thanks to Lickie; it's missing 3 of it's 4 rubber 'legs' underneath; the 'A' on the A key is rubbed off. It currently does NOT like to dock at work, and it runs as slow as molasses runnin uphill in the winter. I suppose that I need to trade it in, we're upgrading to a new model at work this year. I can easily part with it despite my family's worries; after all, it's not the machine, it's what it does...