Why have all of my appliances allied against me? Some of you may be wondering why there’s been no posting for so long. I would like to say that life just got so terribly exciting that I didn’t have time to write–that I was in some exotic locale, miles from a wireless connection.
But the truth is so much less exciting. It seems that everything in my apartment decided to stop working at precisely the same time. A wicked chain of events that may or may not have started with a planet in retrograde ended with many small appliances staging a mutiny. It’s one of those things that makes me wonder: what will happen when the machines turn against us?
It began with my iPod, which stopped playing as soon as my feet hit the treadmill. My laptop followed suit, on a Game Day. Banished to my apartment, I had declared it a writing day. (The Writing Day is very important, as it comes so infrequently now–it’s like the Iron Man competition–a test of will and endurance, not for the faint of heart.) But as soon as I made my proclamation, the laptop rallied against me, its screen twisted in pixelated fury.
Then came the sabotage from he alarm clock. There was no music at 6 am. I awoke a frazzled, panicked wreck, fearing I was late, stumbling into the kitchen and turning on the coffee pot without adding any coffee. The day went downhill from there. These appliances, they work together. They know my weakness.
Then came the guerilla move. My flat iron refused to heat up, leaving my hair a fuzzy mess. My friend Mukti talks about things being “knackered.” It’s one of those fantastic British words that only seems applicable on rare occasions. We try to use words like “knackered” because they’re just so cool, but we sound ridiculous when they just don’t fit. But believe me, on this day, it fit.
My car was the last straw. It’s old–a surly teenager in car years–so when it makes a sad scraping noise or a mournful grunting sound, I chalk it up to old joints and creaking valves. Maybe just a ‘tude. But this noise it was making, it caused people on the sidewalk to stop and stare. It made other drivers slow down around me–and that never happens in this part of Alabama. It’s as if everyone else around me thought the car was about to explode in a raging inferno. When my father heard the noise, he gave me that look that says, “Were you hatched from an egg? Are you the same girl I raised? Has all that rock music made you deaf?”
So the car, the William Wallace of my possessions, is now scheduled for medical attention. I’m hopeful it will be enough to bring it back to my side. Our peace summit will begin next week, and perhaps the other smaller, more fickle appliances will cave. I don’t think I could stand any more betrayal–when the TV and the coffee maker side against me, I’ll know I’m at my Waterloo.
