The Five Stages of Grief: As Told by Someone Whose Laptop Just Broke

       Today was supposed to be wonderful.  It is a snowday! Nothing bad should be allowed to happen on snowdays! And yet, my laptop Frederick just took a dive off of my bed down to the cold, cruel floor.  Alas, he is broken and so is my heart.  Anyways, I have found myself experiencing the five stages of grief, and belief this could be a valuable guide to others who have just lost a treasured electronic companion.

1. Denial.  The first feeling is always that this horrible occurrence could not have happened to you.  You are not one of them, you take care of your precious, give it cute names and an appreciative pet once in a while.  But no, the disastrous disaster that you have witnessed did just happened, and you will be left trying to salvage your baby off the sidewalk, or the floor of a McDonalds, all while loudly telling onlookers "it's fine, it's fine, it's not broken, it has never broken in the past."  When you see the damage though you will let out a shriek, immediately moving into the second stage.

2. Anger. "Betrayal! Betrayal you stupid, useless hunk of metal!"  I yelled at my computer when I realized the damage done by it's Reichenbach fall could not be fixed by either pushing the two pieces back together or duct taping them together in a worst case scenario.  Anger is a very reasonable feeling when an electronic that you have grown to love suddenly dies on you.  However you must remember that it didn't want this any more than you did.  Also it is probably your fault.

3. Depression.  This is by far the longest stage for most people experience the death of an electronic.  I know that I will be mourning Frederick for quite some time, as he and I have been friends through thick and thin for several years now, and I don't know who I will spend my late nights on Tumblr with.  You will feel sad, tears are normal, but remember that every day people crack their iPhones, break their laptops, and smash their iPads.  You are surrounded by people grieving for the loss of their tech babies, and we will get through this together.

4.  Bargaining. After you have gotten over the majority of your sadness, you will always be sad for your lost love, you move into bargaining.  Being willing to give anything for your dead electronic to come back from the Apple Store in the sky.  Or maybe the Best Buy.  I'm not sure where you shop.  To be honest I don't think this actually happens in an electronic death, this stage my be reserved for real death only.

5.  Acceptance.  This usually happens when your new electronic arrives or when the man from Geek Squad says he can fix your laptop and that it will be ready by tomorrow morning.  However if they say they will have to send it away to their repair factory and it will be two to three weeks, read steps 1-4 again until your fixed tech baby arrives in a Fedex box at your front door ready to be cuddled and told how brave he was.