My laptop was on life support.

Unless it was hooked up to IVs, I knew it wouldn’t last long before it died. The power just petered out as soon as I pulled the plug. Perhaps it was all the security software IT was running in the background, or perhaps (my guilty conscience suggested), I had killed it with my own hands by editing too many marketing videos with its feeble frame. Whatever the reason, some mysterious malady was causing early-onset death and draining it whenever it wasn’t attached to life support, and fast. I couldn’t risk not bringing the power cord with me, even if I was only going to an hour-long meeting. Because I never knew whether it might take a turn for the worse while it was away from its dock.

The laptop would become hot to the touch, almost painfully so as it burned up with fever from its struggle with software, and possibly hardware, failure. Every breath was a loud struggle.

As the laptop approached the final stages of life, its screen turned blue (or black, which is apparently the new blue) several times a week, right when it was about to code. Then, after that blink of a warning message, it would crash without giving me a chance to save my work.

That was my old laptop.

I recently got a new one. Or at least, I thought it was new. When I opened the lid and began to type my login, the F key came off, dangling by a tiny wire. Turns out it was just new to me. I couldn’t help but start to laugh because sometimes that’s all you can do.

The F key is now reattached, and I’m clicking right along. Until…I realize the new laptop’s breathing hard with even the simplest of tasks, its fan spinning loudly enough to trigger the automatic noise suppression on every single video call I join. The labored breathing only stops when I turn it off or put it to sleep. And sometimes not even then. I come back into the room the next morning to find it already out of breath even before I shake it awake.

I’ve got a bad feeling as it begins again, that familiar tale: “Death of a Laptop.”