Memoirs of a Computer Lab Kid

Before I had my own computer, before the Xanga themes and the music players and the sparkly cursors, there was 4th grade computer class.

Once a week, 24 kids and I would load in single-file into the computer lab on the third floor — a room packed wall-to-wall with clunky beige and gray desktops, greasy keyboards, tangled wires, and bulky cubed monitors with built-in floppy disk drives. The air was warm — not from any heater, but from the collective hum of a couple dozen overworked machines.

Our teacher was a middle-aged man (or so I assumed — I was nine, so everyone over 30 looked like they were pushing 60). In my memory, he looked like Bill Gates: glasses, tucked-in shirt, a kind of techy awkwardness. His job was to teach us how to type, and maybe — just maybe — prepare us for the internet age.

We were allowed to use two programs: the typing software, which felt like a glorified game of whack-a-mole with letters, and a website called Yahooligans. Does anyone remember Yahooligans? I can't even tell you what it did, but I remember liking the name. It felt mischievous, like something fun was hidden behind every link.

Eventually, one of us discovered that the class computers could access Neopets.com — and from then on, everything changed. As soon as we were done with our typing lessons, we'd all quietly migrate over to our Neopets accounts, customizing our pets, collecting items, and playing those little flash games. It felt like a secret portal had opened — one that the grown-ups didn't fully understand.

This wasn't my first encounter with electronics — I had a Game Boy and a Super Nintendo at home — but it was my first real memory of a computer. A machine that connected to something bigger. Something shared. Something I wanted to be a part of.

I didn't know what coding was back then. I didn't know how websites were made or how keyboards could be tools instead of toys. But I remember sitting in that hot, slightly grimy lab, thinking to myself: I need one of these. I didn't know what I'd do with it — just that I wanted to learn and explore.