She opens the pantry to start making dinner. "No tomato paste? I could've sworn we had tomato paste. I can't make meat loaf without tomato paste." A theatrical sigh for her husband's benefit, a jingle of the keys - "I guess I have to run to the supermarket." From his settled roost near the TV, he barely manages a grunt of acknowledgement. He certainly doesn't bother to get up and look, to see that there are three cans of tomato paste there next to the Triscuits. She knows he won't.

Out to the minivan. She starts the ignition with an eager, trembling hand. The van wheels away in the general direction of the grocery store. But once out of sight of the house, it turns off into a parking lot tucked behind a sleeping office building. The headlights are barely off and already she's reaching into her purse. It fills her hand with its bulk and her heart with anticipation: the OQO UMPC Model 01+ Ulra Portable PC.

A hasty look around for phantom passersby - no, nobody, of course not, who would be walking around in the dark out here? Frantic with pleasure, she slides out the miniature QWERTY keyboard, fumbles with the digital pen. She's lost in a fog of mobile tablet computing, wandering blissfully through the 30GB hard drive, coasting through the air on the built-in 802.11b wireless capability, blinded by the brilliant 800x480 LCD touchscreen. Audio, video, email, bluetooth: she has it all. She has everything. The mundane world around her melts away. She is the universe.

Then, the crash. The battery dies. The light goes out. Can it really have been three hours already? She falls back down to her cold, uncomfortable life. Windshield wipers. Insurance premiums. Tomato paste? She doesn't know what she'll tell her husband.

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