The Midas Touch

A long time ago, there lived a man, and whatever he touched, turned to gold. King Midas is now famous for that, and the phrase "the Midas touch" is now well known.

I seem to have just the opposite problem. Especially when it comes to electronics.

Examples:

1. My first laptop was stolen a few years ago. When Daniel and I were engaged, he did a medical study for money. He had to stay in the medical center for a week, without many of his personal belongings, so I figured he could use my laptop to keep him company. Even though they had security cameras monitoring the rooms, and everyone who came in and out of the building, there was "no way to recover it". Yeah...it sounds sketchy to me too.
2. My replacement laptop worked just fine until the power cord stopped working. To solve that, we were able to find an older, but compatible power cord to solve the problem.
3. Shortly after the replacement power cord came along, one of the memory sticks gave out.
4. We have since upgraded the memory, but the replacement power cord is dead. I'm dreading paying full price for a power cord, so until I decided to drop $100, I charge my laptop at my parents house once a week when we're over there on Sunday evenings. Then I hope it lasts the rest of the week.
5. For Christmas 2 years ago, my wonderful mother in-law got me a Chi hair straightener that I'd been wishing for. It was great, and I loved it. For about the first two months. Then all of a sudden it stopped working. There was no warranty on it, so I had to pay to have it serviced. It's now in working order, but doesn't it seem like 2 months is a pretty short lifespan for something like that?
6. I got a new camera last fall. The very first picture I took, the flash popped up, and wouldn't go back down. Thankfully Costco has the best return policy, so I was able to return the camera. I did however have to wait till Christmas for my new one (and thankfully, so far, no problems with it).
7. 10 days before Christmas, Daniel and I got our first cell phone plan. A few days after Christmas, I was running an errand for my mom, and my poor new cell phone fell out of my pocket and into a puddle of melted snow. It's little screen was glowing ominously from the bottom of the puddle, but there was no restoring it. Since I had only had my phone for two weeks, I was still within the period of time to sign up for insurance. Thankfully, they let me sign up, and I was able to get a replacement phone.
8. Last September, I got a sweet little mp3 player from woot! It has worked very well, and I've loved it. Until Thursday. I took it out of my purse to connect to my speakers at work, and all I could hear was ticking. This is unfortunate, since it's still pretty new, but especially because I've been on a good gym schedule, thanks in a large part to my mp3 player. This morning when I grabbed my gym bag, I had the quick foresight to transfer the micro sd card from my mp3 player to my cell phone. I even grabbed the special connector headphones so I can use them at the gym tonight.
9. Now imagine my disappointment when I tried out the music player on my phone earlier, to find that only one of the ear buds works on my headphones. These aren't the typical audio jack headphones either...they had a special plug that isn't readily available. I suppose I should just be grateful that I have one working ear bud, but it's getting old.

I don't write this for pitty...I'll get by with one working earphone...I just want to know if anybody else has this kind of problem, or if it's just me. I have a feeling I'm not the only one, and the underlying cause just might be that electronics are made cheaper and cheaper, with the intent that consumers will buy things more often.

What's your opinion, am I a wrecking machine, or is it a well delivered scam from corporate America?