Nature and Buttons

Sitting in the chair, I turned to talk to the cat and thus shifted the car keys in my front jeans pocket, nine stories up from the parking lot.  This upset the car, which began honking alarms that no one pays attention to unless it continues for ten minutes past irritation.  How?  I had to stretch to see if it was indeed the car, parked several spaces past the window, and yes; the box was blinking and yelling about suspect intrusions, about the owner not keeping the keys on a hook by the door.

Fortunately, I did not have to rally into shoes or jacket, but aimed the control tab in the general direction, and it stopped.  Learning not to push it frantically by jabjabjabbing the button taught me that it only takes one click or I am only setting it off and on, reigniting the troops.  The thing has been turned on from the school cafeteria, which does not have windows to the back lot, but scads of kitchen machines, cement, and brick walls.  I don't know how these fobs work, and can only imagine invisible rays arrowing through humans, cafeteria posters on nutrition, and pictures of food only seen in professional shoots.  Magic.

Actions needing attention now get by with the push of a button, similar to the revolutionary-but-not-true idea back in the 1940s and 50s, that household conveniences would provide the housewife with the Life of Riley.  TV dinners allowed more tv time, TV trays allowed your education to continue; washers, mangles, dryers, electrical steam irons powered by the turn of a dial would hum along with little backbreaking output from said Frau.  Laundry became not an all day back-breaker, just sort and haul the pile into the maw of the spinning tub, sudsing onwards with Oxydol, Dreft, Ivory Snow if it were baby clothing.  I still have my Polish grandmother's washing board, her name at the top of the new-improved, hygienic, soap-saving corrugated glass.  Thirteen kids before permanent press, no wonder she went around the bend.

But did we find ourselves with free time?  No more than today's computerized households, just hold your breath that the electricity stays on.  I thought that by this time in my life, that I would be having lunch with the girls, hiking the trails, penning thoughtful missives.  Nope.  I have a difficult time keeping up, and am slowly simplifying sort of no faster than the Grand Canyon was eroded into beauty by rivers.  It is a tumble of repair, reply, making appointments, with reading how to declutter, create hygge, and breaking sentiment with your mother's cherished teacups that must find a good home.  I think my cousin will take them, they are precious to me.

The majority of our lives exists without the ability to control, as it is based on instinct, emotions, environment, psychological hoo-ha, and fantasy.  Bet you can think of other reasons, such as Mother Nature, nature, predators, disease, heartbreak, devotion, natural disasters, or anything that enters from the outside.  Maybe an asteroid.

Now that you're substantially on edge with the rare but possible asteroid smash, and that the electrical  plant would be all gone, think of your phobias.  What are you frightened of that most other people don't even think about?  Spiders alternately scare and fascinate me, I have no fear of zebra spiders, and let them live in the sun of my screened windows; the larger brown house spiders that I only see in the morning after the cats have dispatched them give me the willies.  If a spider drops from the ceiling (yes it has happened) to land on me, strangled screams and flapping ensue.

I hate heights, and have frozen to the point that a brave, patient soul has had to drag me back to my safe zone.  How those models who pose atop canyon pillars via helicopter do it is beyond me, they earn every penny they get.  I would be flattened, trying to melt into the ground.

Balloons.  Do not bring a balloon near me unless your swear vocabulary needs new words which I will supply, not gladly.  Balloons are unjolly time bombs and if the supermarket is giving them away to the children, I will leave the store.  I don't see this happening anymore, someone developed sense or a lawsuit was filed.  Kids bite on them, wap them about, let them fly up to the ceiling where there are pointy things and hot lightbulbs.  Balloon animal formation during assemblies, with the rubber squeaking with every twist causes me to grit my teeth into a frozen smile whilst the classroom students clap with glee.  I have to be a good example of maturity, and being scared of balloons is not.

But you, how about you?  Are you a part of the population that is frightened of an area of your home, say, the basement or the attic?  Why is that so commonplace, is it created by the unfamiliarity?  The poor lighting?  Steven King?  Or is something really there?  Why is the basement/attic combo preferred by your very own haunt?  Well, it isn't, but for me even as an adult when going down to the basement in my old house, I would take a cat in my arms.  C'mon kitty kitty, the laundry needs to go into the dryer.

Most of the time, the cat, bored with dank atmosphere, (or maybe she knew there WAS something there and wanted to get the hell away), would run back up the wooden stairs, the kind of stairs that were open in the back so that your ankles could be grabbed.  Thanks, cat.  But why a cat served as protection from the unseen makes no sense; my beloved dog said fare-thee-well also, her toenails scrabbling up the wood planks.  I would be stuck alone, slam the dry clothing into the basket and run like a rabbit.

Same thing with the attic in that house, come on , dog, cat.  My son thought there was a dead man hanging up there; also, alligators under his bed would keep him awake regardless if I checked with a broom to see if any lurking antediluvians were in residence.  No. Alligators. Didn't matter, just as when I was younger, there were monsters under my bed, like from The House on Haunted Hill.
or The First Man into Space, both 1959.  I still don't like my foot hanging over the bed.

No technology will supersede human instinct, or give control over the bugaboos hiding in the cabinet; who knows where it all comes from?  I myself have had a few paranormal experiences, and let me tell you, the more you talk to people, the more will say that they had never told anyone, but there are unexplainable occurrences that happened in their lives.  My master's was on the paranormal as a part of creativity, complete with a survey that got many surprising responses.  Three had no events, yet many more had seen, heard, or interacted with someone that wasn't their Aunt Mildred.  Sane, down to earth people who were quite glad if not relieved to have someone inquire.  It's okay, you can talk about it.

I for one am going to stretch this Sunday evening out like a rubber band, since tomorrow is the first day back to school, spring break has ended.  All will be sleepy, maybe a bit out of sync with the routine, I am not expecting too much, just get the spelling words down and lets review time and maybe begin the math DBA.  Get used to being in a classroom again, and no you cannot go to the bathroom four times in an hour.  

Sleep then, and let the drowsy planets spin away the tired, grey days of lingering winter; I hear that the trees are budding in Ohio, I am a bit north and it has been cold and snowy still.  A spring thunderstorm would be nice, a cleaning of remaining ebbs of blackened snow, a coaxing of new shoots and wakening insects for the birds to get fat on, happy enough to make their nests.  Sail among clouds heavy with rain, sweep through warming nights under lighter covers; the animals know it, mine have been shedding clods; the birds know it, they are coming back trilling songs; the earth knows it, the tilting sphere brings back sunlight to the north, as winter in Australia abides from June to August.  You know it, too.  I can tell.