They're Conspiring Against Us

I think our electronics are conspiring against us.

For a few months now we've been dealing with shorts in the overhead lights in our living room. Sometimes they'd work, sometimes they'd blink, sometimes they'd just go on vacation for a few days and leave us fumbling around in the dark. Finally, about a week ago, they lit up for the very last time and after choking on the repair estimate we decided that seeing your way through the living room is overrated. Candles and the sad little table lamp will have to do for the time being. (Note to self: Be more diligent about picking up stray toys and sharp blocks, because those make navigating the room in your bare feet infinitely more difficult).

Upon my departure to torture-land (also known as our hospital visit last week), it was decided that I would take a phone charger with me in case my phone takes it's last breath in the middle of some really important, life-altering conversation. What we didn't consider was that this would leave my husband with no phone charger, essentially rendering our plan pretty much useless. We HAD another charger at one point, but it decided to spontaneously combust a couple months back and we didn't see the need to replace it. Until now.

Then, the morning after we got back home, our laptop's mouse became the victim of an internal demon. The pointer sat, unmoving, in an eery paralysis despite our attempts to wake it up. Suddenly, without warning, it began to shoot across the screen violently. I half expected foam to start oozing out of the keyboard. And just as suddenly, it came to a rest, where it remained until we were forced to resurrect our old USB mouse. Ironically, the same thing happened to our last laptop - the one that has been shunned to the corner due to the reoccuring demonic possession and it's affiliation with Gateway (which may be one in the same).

Yesterday, as we struggled to use our external computer mouse in the presence of two curious and not-so-careful children, my husband noticed that his cell phone must have had a stroke sometime in the night. The buttons down the left side would not work. So if you have a phone number that involves a 1, 4, or 7, you are out of luck. Wait, you'd be out of luck anyway, because the "CALL" button is there, too. Guess we don't need that phone charger after all...

And if that weren't enough, even my daughter's toy cell phone refuses to ring any longer. It must have reached the end of it's (ridiculously short) plastic lifetime. Unfortunately, somewhere along the lines my daughter learned that the way to fix everything is to stick new batteries in it, and despite having watched Daddy do that very thing, she keeps asking. I'm tempted to throw it against the floor and crack it in half so at least she can SEE that it's broken, and not just think that we are too stupid to properly insert a battery.

I'm happy to report though that the television and the toaster are still functioning, so there is no need to panic just yet...