ouch! I jerked my arm back from the laptop. I'm in the habit of typing in various states of undress; in this case I was wearing no shirt. That shouldn't have made a difference to my computer, but I felt a short sharp shock running up my right arm each time I started to type. I poked around at the body of my aging Thinkpad laptop. There was a corner that had taken a few scuffs, some light damage. Now each time the relatively soft skin of my forearm comes in contact with it, I feel electricity.

Somehow my computer has a three-year warranty - it's one of the things I love best about this device. I have had the screen replaced twice, the keyboard once. As I was composing a support request at IBM.com, figuring out how to explain my problem for a fix (instead of covering the spot with white-out or duct tape) I laid my wrist against my brother's Thinkpad, on the dining table next to me here where I was installing software on it. Ouch! Shit! It shocked me too! Ahem - maybe I'm developing an allergy.