Things Fall Apart

Did you ever notice* how some periods of your life are happy and sweet and would make a nice montage, while other times it seems like entropy is having its place fumigated and has come to stay at your house for a while? I've been having one of those second kind of times lately. Thankfully, the major components of my life -- marriage, career, health -- have so far been largely immune to this phenomenon, though there was some craziness with the ex a couple of months back. It's just been little annoying things, one after another.

I think it started with computers. A few months ago my Sony laptop started performing so poorly that I was sure it was infected with something. It wasn't until this week that I realized it is only recognizing half of its memory and there is no way to fix it. It turns out I am part of a class action suit against Sony over the design of this particular motherboard. But of course I won't get anything from the settlement. This would not have been quite so upsetting if my Toshiba laptop had not suddenly decided it was only going to boot every third time or so that I turn it on. The Wife went through a similar process with her Toshiba, and it doesn't end well. My Dell desktop is "venerable" by computer standards, so this pretty much left me without a useful home computer**.

Then there are the tools. I burned up a table saw pretty early in the shed replacement project. It was a donation from a friend moving to California, and he had used to it put concrete siding on his house, so I wasn't really that surprised. But it was something else to be dealt with. Then last week the motor on the planer/jointer quit working suddenly. We don't even use the thing that much, so I am really not happy about that one.

The kicker came this past Monday when I backed my car into the wife's truck as I was leaving for work. No major damage to either vehicle, but enough to require some repairs to both. It was really not my best day.

This has all happened against the backdrop of broken light fixtures, mailbox posts, vacuum cleaners and blenders that are a natural consequence of a modern American life. Maybe the possessions are trying to get back at me for talking bad about material things. If so, I take it all back.

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* Did you ever notice how old men all eventually start talking like Andy Rooney? I'm looking forward to rocking eyebrows larger than my head.

** So I have three computers at home. Plus two at work. Sue me.