They say bad luck comes in multiples of three. In a way, I hope that’s so, because I’ve had my three, and I’m ready for a more felicitous turn of events.

First, the Mighty Mouse on my home iMac has so much gunk built up in its internal scroll wheels it can’t be cleaned, no matter how much alcohol I lubricate the scroll ball with, or how vigorously it is thereafter rolled, upside down, on a lint-free cloth. I would have braved taking the thing apart last night, and was on the verge of doing so, when our four-year-old got out of bed and wandered into the den. Though it wasn’t obvious, this was about to be the second piece of bad luck.

He was complaining of a sore throat, which seemed unsurprising, since allergies and the flu are currently taking their toll on the family. I held him in my lap and figured I’d give him a bit of medicine for it and send him back to bed when, without warning, he emitted a "HWULPF" sort of sound and sent streams of barf, in quick succession, all over my leg, desk, and laptop keyboard. This after, as it turned out, he’d already barfed all over his bed.

Number three? It looks like my venerable Toshiba Satellite is about to go into a forced retirement. I’d cleaned the keyboard of vomit this morning, but it’s no longer functional. I don’t know if I did something (I tried to be very careful), or the stream of acidic stomach contents shorted something out, but I can’t repair the damage, however it might have been caused. Toshiba doesn’t exactly make their keyboards very user-serviceable, either.

But, hey, maybe my situation is changing now; my new 24" monitor arrived this morning. One can hope.