“It’s the back light,” Said the technican.

“It’s the back light,” said the technician, “And it will cost around 400 dollars to replace it properly.” This sentence alone had the ability to drop my jaw further down my face then any other sentence had ever did in my life. I’ve been through a lot of different technical catastrophes (hard drive crashes, viruses, and much more) but this one takes the cake. Being a money starved college student and an adult, for that matter, means I have to shell out $400 to get my Laptop’s monitor replaced. Four hundred dollars is a lot of money and since its about 1/6 of my yearly income, I believe I could be still called a man if I would cry a bit (actually punching a wall would make me feel better).

Coming through the door of my parents house, I threw my keys at the blue couch that sits in the living room.My mother said, “Let me guess, its $200.” I looked at her with my usual smirk and said, “Actually $400.” Of course, she had no sympathy for my loss (and I expected her to have none) since it’s like I always said, “Laptops are a waste of money.” However, the lustful nature of the beast has always been dangled in front of my face and upon graduation, I gave into my human nature and purchase a $600 dollar Toshiba Laptop, thinking,“Finally, I can watch television and be on the computer at the same time.”

Not saying the loss of the laptop, for about a week, is a loss because it’s not at all. I live in a house hold that currently has four different computers to choose from so I can definitely access the Internet and such. The problem is that it hurts my pride. I’ve been a semi-literate computer user ever since 2005 when I first registered to receive an internet service. I get at least 2 calls a month to repair other people’s computers (viruses and other software problems) and I usually successfully fix them on a regular basis. I take pride in that fact that I can actually fix things, however, when it comes to hardware, I feel helpless.

But heck, this is life, right? Its unpredictable. When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t expecting for anything to go wrong and I was expecting that life would be the exact same as it was the night before and the night before that night. Changes are what makes life more interesting. So in conclusion, I say, Hey, my laptop might have died, but having to shell out money builds my character. And let this be a lesson for all of us. Don’t buy laptops, they are not worth it.