Technology Sucks

I bought myself a shiny new lime-green colored 15-inch Dell laptop for my 40th birthday (and because my son's MacBook had died the month before, I said we could "share it"). Hmmm "Share It", famous last words. 5 weeks (and one payment to Dell finance) later my son shows me the laptop with a black screen with the dreaded words "NO HARD DRIVE FOUND". He then admitted that he had rested his elbow below the keyboard and heard a "funny noise". Translation: He killed the hard drive. A quick call to India (aka Dell Tech service) was in order. Long story short, I had a new Hard Drive (under warranty - Sahib did not need to hear about the resting elbow scenario) a few days later. 


After proudly re-installing the hard drive,  reloading all my backup files and proclaiming myself "The New Bill Gates" for doing so, I was back in business. Cut to two days later. I am upstairs in bed having a "Calgon take me away moment" reading a book and enjoying the solitude. My son (aka Hulk Elbow) comes upstairs with the now 6-week old laptop, looks at me with puppy dog eyes and slowly opens the screen. I was Horrified at what I saw. A lovely Spirograph-colored array of pink and green pulsating lines over what looked like a large bullet hole with blood dripping out of it. The conversation went something like this:


Me: Oh MY GAWWWDDDD. What did YOU do?
Daniel: I'm sooo sorry. Dad came home and I shut the laptop but my earphones were on the keyboard and when I opened it it looked like this.
Me: Oh MY GAWWWWWDDD.. What did your Dad say?
Daniel: He said he loved me. 
*Side note: Dad would do something just like that, because he knew that Daniel would soon have to face the wrath of bitch mom.


I then calmly and maturely reacted by breaking out into sobs, saying "I can't handle this right now" and going to bed at 8:00 pm. (Because reacting like my family was lost at sea is how I deal with pretty much any bad situation, big or small).


Long story short: Another call to India, where I am told that Dell will replace the LCD screen to the tune of $200. Because it is a brand new computer, they kindly "waived" the additional labor and shipping fee of $159. I also went ahead and added the "One Year Accidental Damage Warranty" for an additional $99: a sure-fire way to ensure that there will be NO "accidental damage" until one year and 2 days from now. I then basically told Ashmir to just "go ahead and add it to my pile of debt." 


Yesterday during my son's guitar lesson, he plugged his electric guitar into the amp and nothing happened. His teacher looked up at me and said, "It's probably just a broken wire inside the guitar." Son of a bitch, I wonder how much that's going to set me back. 
-val