Wherein Your Blogger Relates How Technology Has Thrice Grievously Failed Her in as Many Days

I was sitting up here a couple of days ago, diligently working – a rare state of affairs in any event – when I began to hear the soothing sound of a waterfall in my peaceful, zen-like mind. Only it wasn’t in my zen-like mind, it was in my laundry room. I leapt up as though bitten on the ass and bounded into the guest room, which houses our laundry facilities. Whereupon I was met with the sight of gallons and gallons of water pouring (zen-like) out of my brand new, front-loading washer and onto the floor.

I screamed a little, then began grabbing towels and things to throw on the floor, and screamed a little more. (Fortunately, we’re not very good at folding laundry, and so there were a bunch of clean towels piled on the guest bed.) Then, like an idiot, I realized that water was still pouring out of the washing machine and I frantically hit the cancel button, to no avail. The deluge continued.

I took the stairs four at a time, emitting little yelps along the way, and grabbed a couple stock pots, then took the stairs back up four at a time. After positioning one of them underneath the cascade, I grabbed the phone and called TS.

Me: [Gasping] “HOW DO YOU TURN OFF THE FUCKING WATER TO THE WASHING MACHINE?”

Him: Wha--? [Apparently not discerning that I was asking for reasons beyond general enlightenment.]

Me: “TELL ME, NOW!”

Well, I finally got it shut off. By that time, the carpet outside the laundry room was not merely wet, but could fairly be called sodden, and I had nary a dry towel. By the time TS got home to help assess the situation, gravity had interceded, and there was a goodly amount of water in the garage.

Well, the insurance guy has been out and he assures us that it’s probably not the end of the world, and that it will all dry out, even inside the wall. My washing machine guy, on the other hand, is still uncertain why my washing machine declined to stop spewing forth water at the appropriate time. But because he is a washing machine guy, he ordered a part and promises to install it on Monday.

Then today, I met TS and Tony for lunch, whereupon I discovered that the driver’s side door on my Volkswagen Jetta had developed an antipathy to performing the most basic door-like function: closing.

Have you ever driven a manual transmission vehicle while using your left arm to hold the door closed? No? Good. Don’t – and then you might not nearly die a horrible fucking death because you failed to make the sharp left-leaning bend in the road while steering with a single hand, since your other hand was busy keeping the door from swinging open into oncoming traffic at the apex of the curve.

No sooner had I returned home and settled back down to work than my computer flashed, for approximately an eighth of a second, a blue screen with a bunch of words, one of which was “VIRUS,” before shutting down entirely. It must have been just kidding, because it fired right back up again. Or it might just be waiting to utterly fail me at the worst possible time.

The Luddites had a fucking point.