If we’re Facebook friends,* you may recall that last week, I dumped a full glass of iced tea over the keyboard of my laptop. This act of clumsiness must have offended the ghost of Steve Jobs in some way, because despite heroic effort on the part of Tech Support and the Genius Bar, my laptop could not be resurrected. I left the Apple store with tear-sodden tissues and a brand new laptop.

Fortunately, my backup software had in fact run a week prior to the event, so in hindsight the event, while annoying and expensive, was a lot less traumatic than it could have been. A lot less traumatic than, for example, the time my laptop died three days before my application for a major scholarship was due. Or when a later laptop died right after I defended my thesis, when I had just 5 days to get it printed and submitted before the deadline for graduation.

There seems to be a rule that tech will fail at the absolute worst moment possible. I blame Murphy. I’d also love to hear your stories of tech disasters – share in the comments!

*And if we’re not, why is that? Send me a request!