Never in our life did we experience breakdowns in our appliances and computers at the rate it hit us these last few months. Looking back, now that all seems fine and dandy, it felt a lot like we were hit by a massive Mercury retrograde blow.
What is Mercury retrograde?
Just as we are affected by the pull of the moon, many believe that the movement of Mercury also affects us. Mercury is known as the planet of communication. Every few months, it slows down (it normally moves faster than Earth but slows down during retrograde periods) and appears to move backward (it actually does not; it’s an optical illusion). Because of this, it is said that during Mercury retrograde, communications-related activities and events could be affected — relationships can experience miscommunication, travel schedules can be disrupted, and even appliances can experience breakdowns.
Breakdowns, one after the other
First, our LED TV began showing signs of age. There was an ugly permanent white line across the bottom part of the TV. Since the kids hardly watch TV and I just open it for the news and some YouTube watching, we ignored the line. But a few months ago, while watching some TV, the whole screen suddenly began waving and getting distorted. We tried turning it off and turning it back on. The problem persisted. We had to accept that our TV just died on us.
One day, as our son was about to warm up the car, it refused to start. Yup, we had to go out to buy a new battery!
Next to go was our small ref. We had been deferring getting a new one but one day a few weeks ago, the sides began getting hot to the touch. I was afraid the coils were defective and were putting too much pressure on the condenser as well. It had to go.
Not too long after that, our fairly new large ref showed signs of grounding. We would get mild electric shocks each time we touched metal parts inside the ref. Uh-oh, that was not a good sign either. We called for service and both the condenser and heater had to be changed.
Then, my Mac suddenly went on the blink and refused to boot up. Our suking tech guy said that my SSD finally gave up on me. It was goodbye for my hard disk and all the data inside it. Thankfully, most of my critical files were backed up on external drives but I did have to spend a week reconstructing office files that I still had not backed up. I was so close to actually getting a brand new Macbook Air after 9 long years and was holding out till its local release but because of pending work, I had to shell out a few thousands for a replacement SSD. Oh well. It can serve as my backup Mac down the road.
You’d think that was the end of it. Nope, there was one more. The aircon in our room would no longer blow air. It would turn on but no air would come out. In the middle of summer, we had to do with just an electric fan for about a week. During servicing, we found out that the integrated circuit regulating electricity had to be replaced. Again, we were just glad that it was not the fan that was problematic. We would have had to shell out several thousand pesos more if it had also died.
What an expensive last few months this was!
Was it all caused by Mercury retrograde? I honestly don’t know. But I am thankful that the kids have been pitching in with the replacement and servicing cost of these appliances.
Did I get stressed? Surprisingly, NO. Not even when my Mac died. I think this pandemic has made me realize that there are many more things that can cause me to stress out than devices breaking down. I am just thankful that with each breakdown, we still had the means to resolve it.
Yes, I checked when the next retrograde will happen. September 9 to October 2, then December 29, 2022 to January 18, 2023. Hopefully, nothing else will go wrong then. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the series of breakdowns we just had will be the last for a long time.