I was blazing my way toward a deadline when my desk suddenly began to trill.

Yes, trill. A lightly ringing bell. I glanced at the mound of paper heaped in front of me, while my mind attempted to conjure with the concept of ringing paper.

Eventually I dug under a few pages and found the culprit -- my brand new Hewlett-Packard Jornada 820 Handheld PC.

Except it wasn't really mine. It was an evaluation unit, shipped to me for two weeks by HP under the illusion that I am capable of objectively evaluating hundreds of PCs at a time.

Other people may have the intestinal whatever to do that. I get too emotional.

You see, I got into tech writing fifteen years ago with one purpose in mind: to get a free laptop. It was my sense that PC companies sent reviewers PCs to write about, and the writers got to keep the laptop if they wrote the right thing (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

I know I would have written something really nice if someone had given me a free laptop. Nobody ever did. It doesn't work like that. They ship them to you, you review them, and then you ship them back. And I never even got one of those. In 15 years, I never even got a free loaner. Lots of software, but zero hardware.

OK. So two weeks ago, six months since I stopped reviewing wares for the local paper, the dog barked, and I went to the door and found a free mini-notebook waiting for me.

It finally came.

It was an HP Jornada 820 Handheld PC. I tore it open and marveled at its size. It weighs only 2.5 pounds and has a keyboard to die for -- compact, but very touch-typable. This was no PalmPilot. It was a full-featured Windows CE computer, one you could tuck under an arm and carry with you anywhere. It had a pocket version of MS Word on it, and built-in Internet dial-up, and a cable that let you upload and synchronize all your files with your mother computer.

Best of all was its power set-up. Touch the ON button and that sucker was ON -- no waiting two minutes for Windows to load. And the battery allowed you to work for 10-15 hours without recharging. Compare that to your usual 90-minute laptop battery life.

I adored it.

Rachel saw me holding it close, and sought reassurances that I would send it back when the trial period was up. In the past, there were difficulties. And it was starting all over again.

I was already picturing me and the Jornada taking walks in the woods. Me and the Jornada tapping away on a city bus. Me and the Jornada sharing a joke on the bench beside the Kreemy Kone. Me and my Jornada tippytoeing down a bad street, the computer inside my jacket, so no one could see my treasure.

I pictured myself throwing it up into the air, in a slow, spinning motion, maybe on a beach somewhere, and having it fall back gently into my hands, all smiles.

Telling me to send it back was like telling me I couldn't keep a dog that followed me home -- after I untied him from his own front porch, and dragged him home with me against his will.

If I was to tell Hewlett Packard I wanted it, they'd probably offer me a $200 or so discount off the $999 list price. But Rachel was right. I already own six computers. I don't really need one I can balance on my nose.

I just want it.

And the machine did have one annoying glitch. You can't synchronize of upload files using a serial port in current use on your desktop computer. You need an unused port, or you need to install one, to perform this task. The warning on the package needed to be more severe than it was, because the installation permanently disables any other task that port was being put to. Thank to HP, my external modem can no longer dial into the Net.

So I'm sitting at my desk and it starts trilling, and I dig out the Jornada, and discover that Hewlett-Packard programmed the machine to cry out when it was time to be sent back.

So here I am, packaging it up, swaddling it in bubblewrap, affixing the FedEx label, putting the best face on things. It helps to remember that a few months from now there will be another handheld a few ounces lighter, a half inch slimmer, with an even faster modem. And it will cost $999, too.

Fly, little bird -- fly home and be free.

But I'm going to miss you big time.