But Does It Have A Second Rinse?

There was a commercial on TV this morning from an appliance manufacturer who wanted to show how tough their washing machines were. They lined up two rows of washers, put up some ramps and ran a pick-up truck over the top of them. I’m not sure what this has to do with the clothes washing capabilities of the machines but none of them buckled or bent. They are tough washing machines, the kind someone would buy when they are looking for something special to run a pick-up over. There’s no need to go out in the woods to find tree stumps or fallen logs to blast over. We don’t have to search city streets for the perfect pot hole to give us bounce in our drive, we can just line up washing machines, grab a couple of ramps and have at in the back yard. Excitement and thrills without having to leave home. I started thinking of the possibilities and wondering how the washers would hold up to an overloaded minivan when I noticed the tag line scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen, “Do Not Attempt At Home.” Darn.

The Next Call Is For . . .

Candidates for public office are getting fairly intense these last days before the election. Besides all the commercials on TV and the leaflets left on our door they’ve started doing robo-calls. A computer dials the next phone number on the list and a taped voice tells why an opponent ranks with the scum of the earth or why the campaign generating the call is promoting someone who could be the next messiah. It’s getting old.

I hang up on robo-calls but I’ve been able to tell which campaigns are more desperate. They’ve started calling my fax machine and this is causing some anxiety in the household. The fax (I call her Fanny) has been close enough to the computer monitor to read the web pages of the political doings and has heard the TV news. Fanny is one of the ‘undecideds’ and the robo-calls aren’t really helping. Should she vote against the guy who hates kittens or for the guy who wants to turn Lake Superior into a water park to increase tourism? Not needing to breathe, Fanny has no opinions about coal burning electrical plants but she does worry about the quality of electricity from wind farms (“Yeah,” shy wrote on a note she pushed through the delivery tray, “you humans can breathe better with wind power electricity but will there really be enough to fire my circuits?”) And so it goes. I can’t wait for Election Day to be over. The political commercials will be done and Fanny can go back to work as a fax machine instead of concerned (almost) part of the electorate.