Life with Dell - my need to compute

I've managed (with the help of family members) to kill 3 laptops in as many years. Laptop #1 was a Dell I bought in about 2003. She served us well and died about the time we sold our house in Edgerton. She was replaced with Laptop #2, an HP bought at Walmart in Hayward WI in June of 2007. She was a matter of life and death, total life support. I'm shamed in that I cannot survive without a trusty computer. There were several features I didn't like about her but I accepted her anyway and we worked our way through our issues; that is, Tim and me and the computer worked our way through issues. I was the mediator when problem solving was needed. We headed to Apache Junction, Arizona and that HP helped us stay in touch with friends and family and entertain us through the a winter in the sun. We headed back to Wisconsin for the summer and then on to Port Aransas, TX and poof, she up and dies. Actually just her hard drive died but you might as well have removed my own brain. That computer lasted all of 18 months, just outlived its warranty and left me high and dry without any communication outside my immediate surroundings. That should not suck but it did. Winter 2010, drive to Best Buy, purchase another Dell, laptop #3. This computer died two weeks ago. I put on my copy cat hat, the "I've seen Tracy do this" hat. She fixed Dell #1 which is okay except it powers down if my hand passes over the keys, which keys exactly is yet to be discovered. She replaced the hard drive in #2 while she was here and since the computer did not come with backup disks I had to order them and restart it. Monkey see, monkey do. Dell #3's hard drive was removed and replaced by me and since it did come with start up disks I was able to get it running too. Ironically, an old Compaq PC circa 1998, a relic for sure, sits on the desk, still running. She's a bit slow, dull in color and the printer only prints in black in white, in spite of new color cartridge. All this information shared only to confess my addiction to computers and the need to "compute". This leaves us with two restored laptops and one faithful PC. Next time, should I dish out the cash for a Mac? I hear they are "perfect".