I’ve become a believer in curses.

In November, on the flight from Providence to DC, I put my mp3 player in the pocket of the seat in front of me. I was preoccupied, because of flight delays and reading reports for work. In my hurry to leave the plane, I left the mp3 player behind.

One week later, I was on my way home from a news briefing at the National Press Club and pulled out my Samsung camera phone to call a client. Well, when I opened the flip phone, each piece fell apart in my hands. And because the phone was completely destroyed, I lost all of my contacts information.

About one week later, as I was getting ready for a meeting, I heard a strange pop come from the living area. Something was wrong with the television. The picture was in shades of pink. Alas, my tv broke.

I carry my digital camera with me everyhere. The Panasonic Lumix FX-7 is tiny and portable and takes fantastic photos. I traveled to Massachusetts for Christmas and took about 400 pictures over the holiday. After I got home, I noticed the menu pad was bent. The camera no longer works. Broken.

I take very good care of my laptop – always protecting it with padding if I carry it around, shutting down properly, constantly updating virus protection software. The laptop is less thank one year old. One week ago, I was typing away on my Dell 700m, when the screen froze. I turned the computer off and when I tried to restart nothing. Well…. nothing but a bright blue error screen and a funny clicking coming from my hard drive. Diagnosis…. the hard drive died. Out of the blue. With no warning.

Not only did it die, but no files could be retrieved. And because Mala doesn’t back up any information, she lost all the music she ripped off her CDs, all her documents, and most importantly – all of her photos. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g GONE! All the photos of Portugal I took in April, and of my gorgeous niece when she was one-week old, and of Independence Day with the baby niece, and of Thanksgiving. All gone!

These last 14 days, I’ve been sick with bronchitis. I’ve seen the doctor three times and am trying my third antibiotic – hoping this one will clear all the crap in my chest and lungs. So I’ve been stuck on the couch watching a lot of DVDs. Yesterday, I popped in National Treasure. The movie started to skip. Thinking it was the DVD, I ejected the disc, checked it for scratches, wiped it with a papertowel anyway and popped it back in. The problem wasn’t the disc, but the DVD player. Broken. No longer plays any dvds.

Since the last week of November I’ve either lost or had to replace – an mp3 player, a cellphone, a television set, a digital camera, an 80GB hard drive, and now a DVD player. All, with the exception of the television set, were less than one year old.

Not to mention that I never ever ever get sick and am stuck battling a nasty case of bronchitis.

Is this normal? Or have I been cursed? What do you think?