Likely Normal

Have you ever encountered that special someone who smiles and nods when tech talk starts, only to reveal they think the cloud is an actual weather phenomenon storing their selfies? These bewildered souls roam among us, living in a delightful alternate reality where digital storage sounds like meteorology and IT support might as well be a weather forecast. You can spot them by their nervous questions about whether their files need rain protection or their genuine concern that a storm might wipe out their vacation photos. They’re the reason tech support reps keep stress balls at their desks and why the cloud section of the FAQ page includes the sentence: “No, we cannot retrieve your documents from a cirrus formation.”

The magic really begins when they proudly announce they’ve downloaded the cloud to their flash drive or angrily demand to know why their files “evaporated” after they forgot their password. There’s something charming about their belief that their tax documents are floating around in the digital equivalent of a cotton candy machine, or their suspicion that “cloud doctors” (their term for IT) are withholding the secret location of their missing files. These are the same people who ask if the cloud has business hours and whether their files will be “closed on weekends.” The truth – that their precious memories are stored in a temperature-controlled warehouse next to a server named Kevin who dreams of one day being a real boy – would probably break their hearts.

At the end of the day, we secretly love these tech-confused companions. They remind us that not everything needs to make perfect sense, and that sometimes it’s more fun to imagine our data floating on actual clouds (preferably the puffy ones that look like sheep). So the next time someone asks you if their files are safe during hurricane season, just pat their hand and tell them their documents are safely tucked in with the digital weather fairies. After all, in their world, that explanation makes just as much sense as the real one.