Gray line in the middle of my laptop screen

So my laptop suddenly has a gray line running horizontally on the middle of the screen and it won't go away. I'm assuming that A) the LCD strips have failed and B) Because it's a laptop and the screen is part of the computer itself, it won't be an easy or cheap fix (if it's possible to fix it at all, short of replacing the entire thing).

Just wanted to verify this and see what my options are before I go out and buy an external monitor so I don't have to be annoyed by the gray line cutting my screen in half.

Take a screenshot. If the line doesn't appear in it, it's a hardware problem.