My wife often accuses me of having computer Munchausen syndrome. The psychological malady is named after Baron von Munchausen who, for those of you who haven’t seen the quasi-Monty Python movie about the baron, is a character who spins grandiose lies in which he is inevitably the hero, rescuing all before it’s too late.

In modern times, Munchausen syndrome is applied to people, usually nurses or parents, who deliberately precipitate a medical emergency so they can come to the rescue and save the dying patient—dying because the “hero”  just gave the patient a potentially lethal dose of something such as Sodium Pentothol or Drano.

Because I seem to have an extraordinary number of computer errors and crashes—just ask to see my collection of blue screen of death photos—my wife’s diagnosis is that I am somehow jimmying my PC to send it into digital cardiac arrest so I can jump in and rescue it barely in time to make the latest deadline. I have been unable to buy any part of that diagnosis because…well, because it’s just plain silly.

Then came the case of the missing hard drive.

Last week, my PC mentioned it couldn’t recognize the hard drive devoted to mp3s and videos. That’s usually simple to fix—a loose power or data cable. But I had more important things to attend to. This morning, though, I cracked open the computer case to remedy it.

The hard drive was gone. I have absolutely no memory of removing it, nor can I think of any reason I would have had to remove it.  I counted all the drives, and sure enough it was gone. I looked all around the computer. Nothing.

I’m about to embark on a massive office clean-up. But whether I find the drive or not, I may have to concur with my wife’s diagnosis.

Maxthon — Don’t just surf the Web.  Seize It!