My turn - argh !

I guess it was my turn. I've read other people's stories of the headache and hardship a computer crash causes. This time it was me.
A year or so ago, we had a foster puppy. His name was "Wolfie" and he was an adorable Pomeranian puppy the colour of a freshly baked loaf of bread - hence his nickname : Dempster. (a local bakery)
Wolfie had a thing for electrical cords. He never met on he wouldn't chew on just for fun. We went through a lot of cords during the few months he lived with us - the camera to computer cord, the cell phone AC charging cord etc. He also chewed on the AC cord for my computer. The damage seemed minor, and the computer was working fine, so I left it. Kind of a "let sleeping dogs lie" kind of mentality. It worked well, until my DS knocked over a cup of tea. At first I consoled him that my computer was fine, after all, it was closed, and just a few small puddles hit it, and most of the tea was on the floor. It wasn't until an hour later that I realized my laptop was dead. Dead as in - no lights, no power, no bootup, no battery backup. Uh oh. So, I started troubleshooting. In the process, I discovered that the cord still had power - when I burnt my finger and saw a small puff of smoke come from the break in the cord. Reality struck. I'd electrocuted my laptop. Crap. Double Crap because my son's laptop was in the shop for a cleanup of viruses and other nasties he picks up with his not so safe gaming sites.
I called my IT guy, afraid to nudge him to work faster because he has a family crisis going on (2 yr old daughter has leukemia-put her on your prayer list) and described the problem to him.
He figures I fried the motherboard, and yes, it probably was not worth fixing as the cost would be a good payment towards a new laptop. The darned things are almost disposable these days.
So, after going through withdrawal for two days, I started doing some research by driving to several local stores and comparative shopping. It's a lot easier to do online, by the way.
I found what I wanted, and they'll even give me $50 for my dead trade-in. So, now I'm the proud owner of a new, shiny Sony VAIO with more bells and whistles than I'll ever need. Once my IT guy returns my son's laptop, she'll go in for loading up of programs ( like Office, Panda etc) and whatever data he can recover from the Hard Drive on the old gal. Once that's done, the old gal's carcass will be presented to the store for burial, and as long as I present the receipt for the new girl, I'll walk out with $50. Sorry old gal, you've served me well, but I take your leaving me hanging personally, so "Bye Bye". Bring on the new.