It doesn’t always come, thank God. But too often, it does. Sometimes as little as two hours after the system sale. Sometimes as long as three or four days afterwards.

The Caller is a person who has just purchased a new computer system from The Computer Guru. And The Call is purportedly an effort on The Caller’s behalf to find out "some more information" about the system they purchased.

Usually The Caller is reading from a kind of script, a series of notes they have jotted down after first making the mistake of mentioning their new purchase to friends, associates, and family members.

Immediately, this group of well-intentioned, self-appointed "experts" descends on The Caller like vultures on carrion. I’ll bet you didn’t know Uncle Bill was a computer expert, did you? Or Jim, the fellow in accounting? Or your insurance agent? Or your massage therapist?

But yes, all these people become instant computer experts and wisdom-purveyors in the presence of The Caller. They want to be sure The Caller has spent his or her money wisely. They want to be sure The Caller has purchased The Right System.

And so they interrogate The Caller like Joe Friday coming down on some young pot-smoking hippie on a 1960’s episode of Dragnet.

In reflexive self-protection, all The Caller can do is write down the questions dutifully and promise to find out the answers quickly – as soon as possible – immediately! Hence, The Call to The Guru.

The questions are usually innocuous enough, even when asked in a frantic tone of voice.

"Does this system have an MMX chip?" (Yes, the Guru hasn’t sold a new system without an MMX chip in a long time).

"Is that computer you sold me a ‘clone?’" (Every computer on the planet except genuine IBM computers are "clones," for what that’s worth, and The Guru sells his share of genuine IBM ThinkPads, for what that’s worth).

"What’s the dot pitch on the monitor you sold me?" (Dot pitch is a measure of the vertical distance, in tenths of a millimeter, between each of the thousands of colored dots that comprise the video image displayed on the computer screen – a curious technical detail, but hardly the sole measure of monitor quality or "suitability-to-task.")

Again, these questions would not be unreasonable, if somebody who knew what the answers meant was asking them. But the computer profession, like any profession, requires years of experience and deep understanding before valid judgments can be made regarding the relative merits of different systems, components, software packages, and computing approaches.

In this field, particularly, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. And a funny thing, too. For example, I always find it humorous how "the computer I bought" becomes "the computer you sold me" for the purposes of The Call.

The idea that a consumer can simply run down a checklist to pick the right system is an appealing idea, and it helps sell a lot of computer magazines and computer-related newspaper articles. Maybe it even gives the consumer some much-needed buying confidence.

The trouble is, it ain’t so, and probably never will be.

Could you pick a wife or husband by running down a checklist? ("Wow! He’s 40 years old, a computer consultant, 5 foot six and one-half inches tall, graduated from Brown University, and owns a Welsh Springer Spaniel. I’ll marry him!")

How about a Doctor? ("He’s 50 years old, been married four times, wears a Rolex watch, and drives a Lexus. I’ll let him remove my brain tumor.")

Would you buy a new house, sight unseen, from a checklist? ("Two stories, quiet street, two-car garage, blue trim, white mailbox. I’ll take it.")

No, of course not. There are too many variables, subtleties, complexities, and intuitive/instinctive factors at work. Possession of facts and technical specifications does not equate to understanding of those facts and technical specifications – which seems to me a fairly simple distinction.

And this is precisely where The Computer Guru comes in.

The Guru knows this stuff cold. He has worked in the computer industry since 1982 – before the introduction of the Macintosh, even. He reads about a hundred computer magazines a month -- and remembers what he reads. In short, The Guru understands.

More to the point, The Computer Guru sells quality systems at fair prices. And if there is anyone who works harder or more diligently in the area of customer support, I’d like to meet him (or her) and shake his (or her) hand -- and maybe appoint him or her as my successor, so I can take a well-needed break.

I’ve been told that it is unwise to trust anyone who asks you to trust them. This, from a person who turned out to be untrustworthy herself – but then, she never asked me to trust her. So, for that reason alone, I won’t come right out and ask you to place blind trust in The Computer Guru.

I will, however, suggest the following:

For everyone’s benefit, questions are best asked before the sale, rather than after. The Guru has no doubts about the quality, reliability, or effectiveness of the products he sells and the solutions he recommends. I use similar systems myself, and I’m a classic power user: more demanding and less-easily satisfied than most of my clients will ever be.

But if you have doubts, before the sale is inarguably the best time to ask. Make it part of the criteria you use before buying. And once the decision is made, don’t second-guess yourself, and create chaos in the process.

Feel free to ask for references. The Guru has hundreds of excellent systems out there in the field, hard at work serving their users. If you’d like to talk with someone who made the decision to entrust his or her computing systems to The Computer Guru, just ask.

Also, decide whether you really want to be an amateur computer technician or consultant – in which case, probing technical questions and arcane technical details are vitally important – or simply a computer user. Do you really want to repair your automobile, or simply drive it?

And finally, don’t underestimate the complexity of the computer field and the relative difficulty of understanding what all the technical jargon and specifications really mean. It’s the Guru’s job to translate these technical factors into plain English that the average consumer can understand.

Again, comparisons with familiar consumer products can be helpful here.

Would you concern yourself with the tensile spring compression rate of the seat springs in your new car? No, you’d simply want to know whether the seats were comfortable or not (a test drive would help).

Would you wonder about the optical refractory diffusion rate of the lens on your new camera? No, you’d simply want to know whether it took clear, sharp, bright photographs (sample photos would help).

Would you ask, "what is the duty cycle of this washing machine in thousands of hours, and what was the testing methodology leading to the MTBF (mean time between failures) specifications?" No, you’d just want to know whether the machine was reliable, and what the warranty coverage was.

And yet, because computers can bring out both the best and worst in people, folks who’d never ask the kind of questions I’ve mentioned above will happily ask obscure technical questions in the computer field. It's as if they really knew what the answers meant, and really had a need for the answers.

Maybe it’s part of the personal computing mystique; after all, nobody wants to be left behind in The Computer Revolution. Nevertheless, in the hands of inexperienced consumers – well-intentioned though they may be -- these questions can take on a distinctly comical aspect.

Imagine calling a brain surgeon after an operation and asking, "What kind of alcohol did you use to sterilize my wounds?"

Imagine calling the auto dealership after purchasing a new car and asking, "Does the engine in the car you sold me have trapezoidal or hemispherically-shaped combustion chambers?"

Imagine calling a landscape architect after she has supervised the planting of some fruit trees on your property, and asking, "Did you use 20-30-20 or 30-20-30 fertilizer on those trees?"

Now, I can almost hear the howls of protest from my readers, some of whom might doggedly insist on the propriety of such questions. To these protestors, I would simply answer: "If you don’t already know the answers to these questions, then you won’t know the true meaning of the answers."

Or, like the classic vaudeville response to the pharmacy sales clerk who says to "walk this way," "if you could walk this way, you wouldn’t need the talcum powder."