The Joy of Yelling at Objects
The other morning, at 5:30 a.m., I stumbled across my bedroom floor on my way to coffee. I saw the scale there and I thought, yeah, what the hell. Bleary-eyed, I stepped on it and became wide awake with rage.
The number it had offered up was 5 pounds more than what I saw just two days prior.
“WHAT?!”
And, as if to a student who tried my patience one too many times:
“THAT IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!”
I vigorously started shaking my head before I unleashed my short tirade of:
“NO, I’M SORRY THAT JUST WON’T DO!”
And with that, I picked up the scale and placed it on the white ceramic tiles of the bathroom floor.
I stepped on it again and what do you know?
It showed me a new weight, 5 pounds less than what it showed just moments before.
It’s always good when a dressing down can yield fast results.
I asked my best friend about the last time he admonished an inanimate object and this is what he said:
Well, this is pretty much a daily occurrence for me. It’s just so easy to blame inanimate objects for everything that goes wrong in your life. I’ve yelled at bikes and doors and pants. I’ve been angry at shoelaces. Lost my cool at a cup of coffee. I used to mutter oaths to my teddy bear. These days I am the angriest at computers. When my laptop died recently I said, “Oh come ON! No, NO! Fuck OFF!” and closed the lid a little harder than you’re probably supposed to. Certainly, if a person recently died I wouldn’t walk into the funeral home and yell, “Oh come ON! No, NO! Fuck OFF!” and then slam the lid of their casket. It’s pretty liberating to have inanimate things around to get angry at. Although I guess a dead person would also be inanimate and it’s unclear in that scenario whether I’m mad at the person or the casket but…you know what I mean.
Pretty much nothing happened when I admonished the laptop. It didn’t spring back to life, I had to buy the laptop I’m currently typing this on. It keeps wanting me to update stuff and it wants to either let me know it’s doing it and/or ask my permission. I’m not your DAD lappy, I don’t care! Just do it and stop BOTHERING ME! I don’t turn you on and tell you about all the updates in my life! Why can’t we have the kind of relationship I have with the toaster? Transactional? Professional?! Just handle your shit. I’ve got enough to worry about with bikes and doors and pants and shoelaces and smug-faced teddy bear.
