Emotative Toaster

I live in the Land of Good Enough; the fridge has a plastic doored inside freezer that has lost the magnet which holds it shut.  Being a manual defrost, the ledge of ice has formed a curved lip that would suit penguins, the light hasn't worked ever, and there is a flap which has a summer and winter position but damned if I remember to flip the flap.  If this procedure is remembered during Defrosting Day, after washing the catch basin for the chunks I have chopped out with a screwdriver and blow-dryer on the vavavoom setting, the question remains of why.  Why does it matter?  There is no difference, the flap doesn't need to know, it thinks it has purpose.  That is part of happiness, this purpose business.

Anthropomorphizing inanimate objects comes naturally to me, and yes, you do it too.  So pointing fingers will get you no where.  You've coaxed "come on, girl", when the car is going rrr rrr rrr on a cold day, you've sworn at plumbing fixtures that don't screw together evenly eight times thereby allow drainage spray to coat the underside of the kitchen sink: "Goddammit, you s.o.b., WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"  Tell me you haven't yelled out "Atta boy!" when the right object fits the right piece.  Rocks are sworn at.  Hammers elicit praise or condemnation.  Find something modern-made that matches a part needed to repair an older appliance.  She's a beauty.

And so, things seem to have assigned gender: ships, storms, trains, and vehicles are mostly feminine; the sun, sexless robots, and appliances have been implicitly given masculine identities, as least in my life.  Do not ask about the sexless robots.  It never happened.  But I talk to things, recently hearing that this classifies me as a genius.  Read 'em and weep, people.

Because they have gender, objects have feelings and like to be useful, fulfilling their purpose.  It grieves me to toss out an empty ballpoint pen, for the pen's life is done and it goes to join an immense vortex of garbage out in an ocean gyre.  It is sad for the pen, and pisses off the ocean; this is part of what I think of before dropping off to sleep.  That carbon footprint business; this leads to me hanging on to things beyond their usefulness or modernity.

The browser for this laptop has informed me that updates will shortly stop, as it will not condescend to interact with geriatric technology.  If I want more than binary alphabet soup to appear onscreen, an upgrade is called for; however.  I AM PERFECTLY HAPPY WITH THE ERRANT DISCOMBOBULATION OF THIS SIX YEAR OLD MACHINE, which in my generational brain, is still a miracle produced by elves, fairies, and wishes on stars.  But, the speaker port no longer works, the glass thing that notified the internal infernals that a certain tab was what I wanted is cracked and no longer, the ejector for the disk drive is caput, and there is a ledge of manual defrost ice forming over the screen. Penguins are in line.

Things have gotten too fast, and he crashes; I have faced the Blue Screen of Death once, just 30 days before warranty ended; every five minutes I have to switch browsers as things freeze or Safari has canceled Force Quit.  It's time. But this fella has been with me since the last years of my master's, and is perfectly sufficient for my needs.  He's a heavy boy, but has been lugged from school to library to desk, slung over my shoulder.  We have a friendship, filled with ups and downs, and is my Mac.

If you don't feel a bit sentimental about the last time of anything, I myself would keep a wide berth so that my babbling brook of concern over a favored sweater, plate, ugly clock from my beloved Grandma Ida, or workhorse appliance on it's last legs doesn't cause alarm.

Now, all of this reverses, as if we moved to Australia, if I am in a hurry.  Then, duck under the flight of things being chucked into bags for the thrift shop as I glean interests down to a select few.  I ain't got time for mess and have parted with a large aquarium, a shoe stand from the 40's, books and more books that I will never refer to again.  They gotta go.  I do tell them that they are going to a far better place where their usefulness will be celebrated, with hopes they don't feel betrayed if the thrift shop tosses them out as well.

Would've been happy with my old red car for the next century; it had taken good care of me but developed dangerous noises and a gas leak besides being rusted out.  But I didn't care what it looked like, it was a good car and lasted with me for nigh to twelve years.  The new one was an invader at first, yet has developed a personality and perception that it likes me.  Nonsense?  Go ask Rudolph Valentino, that's his name, and yes, I jumped gender and made it a he.  

I like the idea of happiness, wanting to spread it like butter on toast and thus extend it to my world.  Things do things, just as we do for each other, unless you're sociopathic and there have been a couple of those in my life as well.   Thank you toaster from the fifties that still works even though I don't eat bread, thank you pastry blender that was my mother's but flakes red paint from the handle into the pie crust, thank you refrigerator still buzzing after twenty years of secondhand use.  Goodbye television was not hard, and I am processing saying goodbye landline.  Haven't had phone service since the end of December, but after working with the consultant who said the problem was likely on my end, I bought a new phone.  It isn't installed, as I am not one to use the phone, and keep forgetting.  The old one going into the garbage won't hurt, except it may get that ocean gyre of garbage into a temper even further.

Thank you blankets, thank you pillow, thank you lights that turn out.  Thank you breath, thank you sun and night and lamp posts who keep us safe; thank you for what I know and how I know it.  Make something happy by using it, an old china cup from your glass cabinet, for example.  Make yourself useful; you deserve it.

Good night, with happiness.