Things That Don't Work as Expected

Ah yes. Am I attracting undesirable magnetic or other forces? The phone ceased to work right around the time I expected that calls about job interviews might reasonably begin to come in (borrowed phone has not gotten any such calls, to be sure). The car first acted as though it was out of gas when I knew it had over a quarter of a tank, and now it additionally behaves as though it has a dead battery (it has not sat that long, surely). As of today, after some weeks of observation, I have concluded that certain Port Authority buses just don't run despite remaining on the schedule, meaning that one can stand around in the cold for nearly an hour wondering why none of the advertised buses have shown up. And now all of a sudden the laptop doesn't want to recognize that it's plugged in. It was happily plugged in upstairs in the library, but of course there the wifi wasn't working so I couldn't look up the bus schedule.
There had better not be anything wrong with the laptop cord. I have been strenuously keeping it away from Orion, but all it takes is the right test-bite.