I'll be locking up my iPod and carrying my phone in a protective case from now on because I'm not dealing with any more broken things right now

I am sort of a superstitious person. I believe that May 21st and March 27 are unlucky days for me, but I don't really buy the Friday the 13th stuff. I'll let black cats cross my path but I won't walk under a ladder or pick up a heads-down penny (which makes me feel OCD when I'm picking up spilled change). And for a long time, I have lived by the rule of never saying anything negative about an inanimate object that I consistently rely on. I learned it from my very first vehicle, a 1987 Ford Ranger, and it has served me well until just recently.

I love my car, for example. I tell it that, too. And what does it do but go and break down requiring $1600 in repairs? I loved my first cell phone, and it stopped working. I don't like my printer, but you can be sure that it will last until I'm 35. And while we sold that Ranger 4 years ago, my family often sees the new owner driving it through town. Spiteful things DON'T DIE.

But the love I have for my car or that phone (or my new one for that matter) fade in comparison to the love I have for my computer. My computer is my baby, and I love it and I take it everywhere with me. And sure it's looking a little rough on the outside, but it's a trooper! It handles all the heavy-duty software I make it run for me and picks up those wireless signals and just yesterday I said to my dad, "I love my computer and I will be sad when I have to replace it."

It must've taken offense, or felt like making me sad, because not six hours later the hard drive went bad and failed to recognize my personal settings. Personal settings are important because they do things like control what's on your desktop and locate the files in My Documents. Personal settings are handy little things. And did I mention that I can no longer save anything?

So tomorrow I have to go get a new hard drive, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm not going to lose any documents or photos or anything like that, but I am going to lose some software and that is frustrating. And it just goes to show that you certainly don't win by being negative, but evidently you don't win by being positive, either. Or maybe you do and resistentialism is real. (I prefer the latter.)