Why does everything break at the same time?
Today, it’s the kitchen faucet. The so-called “smart” faucet that turns on automatically whenever it senses nearby movement. Only it’s not so smart now, staring at me blankly, as I wave my hands like the frantic lunatic I surely am. The only water I get for all my efforting is my own sweat. All I did was replace the batteries, and this is my “reward”?
It’s Monday after the 2024 Presidential election, THE election, here in the U.S. In other words, the worst day for democracy, women, people of color, for differently abled people, LGBT folks, for Life on Earth, since the administration of President Harding—also known for playing golf and grift, back in the early 1920s. I am not doing well. I am ready to box the bleeping faucet into oblivion.
Frankly, I am no more surprised about this faucet malfunction than discovering an ice-cold IPA in my hand after committing to Sober October in an election season. Things have been breaking around this house like popcorn exploding in a kettle without a lid. Our central air conditioning went out in mid-August. Our dishwasher died, our van needed expensive repairs, the hot tub pump seized up, and my electric tea kettle went kaput. We had a brownout on the hottest day of the year, frying the power supply to our refrigerator.
All “first world problems,” so my husband says just to irritate me, I’m sure. Because, truth is, he blames me for the wreckage. I wrote an essay called I’m Mad at God in which I outlined all the reasons that I feel we humans have been set up to fail at addressing long-term challenges like climate change, biodiversity losses and the inexplicable appeal of trip-hazard Crocs shoes.
You have to read the chapter to get the whole gist—I do make up with God in the end—but that’s not apparent when the book title reads, I’m Mad at God. Yes, I was so enamored of the brilliance! wisdom! genius! of what I’d written that I plastered the chapter title across the front cover. Convinced that my relationship with God is like my reproductive system, my OWN HOOVER DAM BUSINESS, I giddily proceeded to write the book.
It seems the Universe failed to grasp the subtleties.
As I was finishing up said book, my aging laptop, the one I’d been nursing along, to avoid yet another big expenditure, failed to save my writing, despite the “auto-save” feature. Getting myself to focus long enough to write an entire book is difficult enough, akin to convincing a caffeinated toddler to take a nap. The thought of reconstructing an entire lost manuscript inspired me to lock up the liquor cabinet. My husband recognized that this glitchy technology threatened the remaining shards of my sanity in this anguishing time. So off to Best Buy, we went.
All’s well that ends expensively…but whoops! That new laptop lasted but one week before it was hacked, and then vacationed for two weeks with the Geek Squad.
I finished writing the book on my sketchy old laptop, pausing to save the file every ten nanoseconds. My nerves were shot long before the election.
All these breakages are just coincidences, I’m sure! But our busted household budget, convinced me to relent. To be on the safe side. I re-titled the book to Madness on the Brink of Eco-Apocalypse.” Nothing there to offend the Divine, is there?
One good thing about being a writer is that it’s “all material,” fodder for the old grist mill. Don’t just get mad, get writing! But it hardly offsets the negatives, the hours of unpaid work, agonizing over words few will ever read, but it’s the crumbs that remind me we have chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen.
Or something like that. Did I mention I’m not doing well?
Excuse me while I go pay homage to Saint Eligius, patron saint of modern machinery. His feast day is December 1, and I plan to go big.
