Yesterday, my computer exploded. Like literally blew up. Forget billowing smoke and blank screens, my laptop not only can’t turn on, but now features a charred plastic hole the size of a fist where the battery pack used to be. At the moment, it’s still perched on my desk in the same spot where it died, little pieces of melted debris stuck to my desk.

But I’m not getting anywhere near the site of explosion to clean up. Why? Well, maybe because fear of electrocution is a little higher up on the list of phobias than molten plastic and a messy desk. It’s not like it matters that much to me anyway, I never really clean up after myself, even when there isn’t an immediate threat of radiation poisoning.

Besides, I don’t think I could even stand looking at the skeleton of the computer I had so dearly loved. The computer that had seen me through so many late nights and last-minute projects. The computer that I’d grown so attached to in the past four years. The computer that, unfortunately, housed my entire iTunes collection (countless hours spent on LimeWire wasted!).  It is no longer that beautiful piece of machinery with 512 KB that remembered birthdays, word documents and photos, but a sad, little shell of the computer that it once was. Call me melodramatic, but you’d probably find life post-computer depressingly difficult too.

While you’re surrounded by people e-mailing from Blackberries and checking Facebook via iPhones, it’s hard not to feel like a social outcast when your computer decided to spontaneously combust in a shower of sparks when you’re checking your e-mail. It’s also especially hard when your friends are the type of people who constantly nag you to send them Facebook gifts or to write on their walls. I’ve already gotten three calls asking why I haven’t sent the “sexy thong” or “fuzzy handcuffs” I promised earlier and two asking why I haven’t drawn graffiti on their walls yet. What am I supposed to do? Try to turn on a computer that’s missing its battery pack and about half of the keyboard?

At this point I have settled into the acceptance of the five stages of grief, already experiencing everything from denial (“It’s just sleeping, right?”) to anger (“You stupid piece of $#!%!”) to bargaining (“Please, please, please take me to the Apple store!”) to depression (“This sucks”).

I can only take comfort in the fact that there are plenty of listings on Craigslist for used iBooks with intact keyboards and fully functional screens.

Hopefully someday I will come to love my new computer as much as the one sitting on my desk in pieces, but for now I’m still mourning the loss of my old computer, making do with telephones and snail mail.

I think I’m even starting to miss spam.