My mother always told me that “hate” was a very strong word. And I agree. Today, I no longer hate liver, I just intensely dislike it. I no longer hate my life; I only wish it were different. Completely different. Heck, I no longer hate Graham Jacobs, though I wish I could smash his conceited little face into a billion pieces and then send the smithereens to that new skank he’s dating. See, I am mature now.

However, there is one hate that I have never gotten over: my hatred of technology. Oh, technology. How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.

You reconnect me with the ghosts of my pathetic past. I ain’t no Scrooge, and I sure as hell don’t need to be haunted by the evils of yesteryear. The Facebook, however, doesn’t seem to understand this. Last week, I got an e-mail informing me that I had a friend awaiting confirmation. Who is it, but Krystal Jones from 10th grade. The nerve! This is the very girl who said I could only be her friend if I let her copy my English homework every week. How dare she try and use me today as just another name in her pursuit of plastic popularity? Oh, Facebook, why must you remind me of my traumatizing past?

You expose me for the asshole I really am. MSN Geeks will be the ruin of me. For those backstabbers not in the know, take note. This is a Web site that allows people to check who has deleted them off their MSN Messenger list. Friendships will be marred and hell will break loose. Case in point: my friend Gertrude (names have been changed to protect the identities of the snubbed and mortified) got deleted by best friend Hortense. Cue Jerry Springer-esque “oooh.” Not only that, Hortense just got hitched and Gertrude was her maid of honour. I know! Can you believe it? After hearing this tragic story of treachery, I decided to try the site out for myself. My list was nothing scandalous. Folks that had me deleted were friends that I haven’t seen since Saved by the Bell was cool. So, figuring I was safe, I decided to spread the word about this nifty tool. Bad move. Within a day, I had seven indignant people confront me about deletions. Oops.

At first I tried to deny them, stammering and stuttering like Daffy Duck. Then, I tried to justify myself. Yet, how do you explain to someone that you just had to delete them because your list was at maximum capacity and in order to add a new contact-that cute guy you met in class the other day-you just had to delete someone. And that someone just had to be them. Yeah, awkward. Welcome to Dickwad City… population: me.

You make me live in a constant state of fear and paranoia. Each time my cellphone rings, I cringe. Further, as I spend most of my waking hours in the basement of a school building, I don’t get reception for most of the day and have to deal with lots of angry messages when I finally leave my dungeon each night. While I fear my phone and, thus, avoid checking my voicemail as much as possible, my fear of e-mail has surpassed all rationality. I am so scared of e-mail that I check it 17 times a day. All five accounts-two personal, three official.

Does this mean I am efficient about replying to e-mails? Hardly. You see, I often forget about e-mails. Like the victims of traumatic experiences that block out the painful parts of the past from their minds, I sometimes subconsciously block the particularly distressing e-mails from my memory. I am paranoia personified.

Technology will be my downfall. Thoreau once proclaimed, “Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools.” While I agree with my predecessor, I myself am not so eloquent. So let this be P Thang’s statement to technology: bite me.