Let me tell you about that one time a week proved to me how fucked up life can get, even when it has only been seven days. This tale is that of many that defy logic, at least from my point of view. It is one of those stories that make you question about the possibilities and circumstances that propagated a chain of events that no one could have seen coming. I honestly had not felt that defeated before, and it was quite exhausting.

As usual, I got up early enough for gym and my nine am class. Fast forward to the next class and its going pretty well. Its at eleven so that means I can snag some grub right after. Goes by in a heartbeat and I am headed to the Callahan for lunch and pretty much sit there and keep drinking tea while I wait for my two o’clock class. As usual, whoever stayed around the circle table, each drinking their last cup of water of coffee. Walk up the stairs of the LSB and I gather up the courage to get hit with some math. I was flying in from Michigan, so I couldn’t make it to classes on Monday, so I felt bad for showing up with my professor, he’s a pretty chill dude. Everyone sits and I take my backpack off. Swing it off my right arm and as I set it on the ground, I see the stain.

“God dammit, something must’ve spilled. I unzip the backpack and to my horror, I see what i never thought I would see in my life. Laptop, external hard drive, mouse (not the animal lol) charger, portable charger, fire tablet. All there, with an inch of water surrounding every single one. The hard drive was submerged under water, just to be clear. I take out the contents of my pack and set them on the table, I am cursing under my breath at this point. I am sure it will be fine, it has to be. This is my computer, and this kind of shit shouldn’t happen to me right before graduating.

I had to leave class. Second time in the week I had no math. “Fuck” I tell myself, the prof definitely hates me now. I run downstairs and find no way to open it up and start drying my computer. I had hope back then. Either way, I find nothing in my building so I make my way through the cold to IT down at a different part of campus. In my head I am imagining the water in my computer freezing up inside and doing even more damage. Tech Hypochondriac I guess fits my behavior. No luck in IT, I start calling people to get a ride to the only place I know, The Apple store. I already know I will be broke by the end of that night.

For some reason, the Apple Store the used to be really close by had recently closed in the past couple of months. So, instead, the closest store was a couple of towns away, in a place called Lynnfield MA. Ten to Twenty minutes later, a friend tells me he can drive me, and I hitch the ride, cradling my computer. Somewhere deep down inside, still, a flicker of hope. We wait at the store, ten, twenty, thirty, forty minutes for the verdict.

“Well, what I am going to give you is some good news. We can refurbish it all, but you will need to get the memory extracted. Here is the place we recommend, and well the bad news now is that it is twelve eighty without tax” I have a breath of hope. Twelve eighty? I must still have a protection plan or something! Maybe its just a yearly thing!

“twelve dollars?” I ask. “Um..” he smirks “one thousand, two hundred, and eighty, dollars….. and thats without tax….” About five or six people laughed around me, I couldn’t see them because I was rubbing my face in that way we all do when we’ve hit shit’s creek. The other place is closer to school, so after a quick din at Panera, we head there to hear what I will have to pay now for the memory recovery. Sit there for a while and they tell me it will be four hundred dollars for it, and that I have to either provide an external drive to dump it all on, or I can purchase a 1TB one from them for a hundred bucks. For anyone out there that doesn’t know, thats what you call a bullshit deal. I don’t care though, because I have one at home I can use. So I leave the computer there, an after work the next day, I went back and handed them my spare drive to recover everything. It doesn’t work. The bill goes up to five hundred.

It was a week of waiting for Apple to call me. And when they finally told me, I felt such a relief. My thesis had been saved, my music collection had been saved, my photos had been saved, everything I have been collecting for years, digitally at least (God I am such a nerd) and I was about to have it all handed back to me. Being depressed and feeling defeated while I waited for the repairs compared nothing to seeing that all my stickers had been gone. I almost cried, I won’t lie. So much memory was on those stickers, from ones that were as old as the first semester I was here, to ones given by people the matter, or bought at places that impacted you like Hiroshima. I guess i never knew how much a water bottle would cost me. Thats what happens the one day you take one to class, ever, in your backpack. ~ad astra ultraque