When I was 6, I was bought a ZX Spectrum. I didn't really know what it was for or what you were supposed to do with it. However my friend who lived in the same street also had one, and when I went round his house he showed me how to use it. He turned it on and simply typed in the following magic words:

    10 PRINT "Matthew is cool";
    20 GO TO 10

And then when he typed RUN the screen suddenly filled up with just how awesome Matthew was. I couldn't believe it. It was like you could just make it do anything. All the stuff I couldn't do, all the stuff I struggled at in life, you could just tell the computer what to do instead and it'd make it happen on your behalf.

But there was a bug in the program. I could see it immediately. It said "Matthew" is cool. I needed to fix this.

I ran home to my own ZX Spectrum and tried it out. I typed in exactly the same magic words, except this time I switched the "Matthew" for my own name, and voila. It worked. The bug had been fixed, and my own TV screen filled up and proclaimed to the world just how fucking cool I actually was.

I think that was when I realized I had to be a programmer.