It began a couple of weeks ago. The world of technology seemed to be turning against me. First my trusty Treo started having an identity crisis, some of the features not working, so I began looking for a backup on eBay just in case. That was before I dropped the phone a couple of days ago and created this colorful display. And before my wonderful tech was able to coax what was left of the phone to sync to my computer – a process that took hours instead of the normal seconds – so that I could at least find out what appointments I had. And just to top things off, the back of my watch fell off – again – and this time I lost it.

At first I figured it was must me, but then I noticed that almost everyone I talked to had a similar tale of technology and communications gone haywire. My buyer who is scheduled to go to settlement on Tuesday reported his DSL suddenly went out. His agent tried to fax a repairs list over, but her fax was down. An appraiser couldn't email information to the lender – the message kept bouncing – but could send it to me so that I could forward it on.

I happened to mention these technoglitches to my client in California who is negotiating for a home here in Baltimore. He had two words to explain it all: Mercury retrograde. Excuse me? You heard right – Mercury is in retrograde, from February 14 through March 8. The smallest planet (since Pluto was demoted) is blamed for disrupting and misguiding communications, breakdowns in phones and computers, and transportation snafus involving cars, buses, and trains during its retrograde phase.

Three or four times a year it does this little routine, and people who study the phenomenon know the symptoms well. This client takes it seriously; he planned his trip to Baltimore and several important dates around this period. And he wasn't surprised at all when I told him that his counteroffer kept bouncing back when the other agent tried to send it, but went through fine from my computer.

Yesterday I was losing it with my phone broken, my watch broken, and did I mention my GPS that suddenly decided to change the route home? If you've ever been around a Type E over the edge, you know it's not a good place to be. Thanks to my client, today I have an explanation. To explain my multi-tasking say of working, I say "That's just me, a Type E," and now I have a reason for the unexplainable: "It's just Mercury in retrograde!"

Does Mercury have it in for us mortals and our tech gadgets? Or is it the full moon tomorrow? Or just coincidence? Whether the answer is none or all of the above, I'm handling it better. And if you think about it, doesn't it generally work better if you admit when you can't control a situation and move on to how to cope?