Smart Computers and Me

I know my computer is really smart. It thinks, you see. When I do something wrong, it immediately tells me about it. Smart little booger. It’s especially fond of little wiggly red lines that it sprinkles across everything I type. Now, of course, it’s gotten even smarter, and it puts little squiggly green lines under words here and there. Sometimes I can even figure out what it thinks I have done wrong.
There is a problem though. It sometimes does things I don’t want it to do! And I’m not smart enough to figure out how to stop it. For example, if I type something like “No. 1” it thinks, “Ah ha! My person is making a list!” and it immediately indents the stuff I’ve just typed and adds a “2”. Fine and dandy, but I didn’t WANT a 2! I didn’t want it indented either. I know how to slap it’s hand and change things to the way I want them, but I get really tired of doing it over and over.
Then there’s the little box that flashes up at the end of a name when I’m making an index. It wants to do some formatting all on its own, and I don’t want it that way. The other day I finally got around to experimenting, and I found the place where I could turn off the automatic formatting. I still haven’t found out whether or not I have to change that setting on every new document.
Then there’s automatic spell checking. Last week Jim was typing up a story about the Eureka Reagan Fest. Our two new-car dealers had their new cars downtown on a side street. Jim typed in that “Leman Chevrolet” was in attendance. I was watching over his shoulder, and I said, “Leman Shovelers?” Turns out that his intelligent computer didn’t know what Chevrolet was, and it substituted its closest alternate. Shovelers???
Now, MY computer doesn’t know what “shovelers” is. I know because there’s this little red squiggly line under it.