Monday, August 06, 2007
Herbie the love civic
So my Honda died and had to be towed to the shop the other day. Two otherwise rational people have now told me it was because I was openly discussing selling the car in front of it. Am I crazy for arguing that the car is, in fact, inanimate? I mean, I understand the urge to anthropomorphize the hell out of everything I use in daily life, but I draw the line at giving people crap for discussing certain things in front of in-organic objects for fear the object might take offense. I'm sorry, that's just how I roll.
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I remember reading some short article (probably in Reader's Digest or something) several years ago entitled, "Sssh! The refrigerator's listening!" The author went on to describe several instances when he had discussed a budget surplus with his wife, only to have a major appliance (within earshot) break catastrophically within a week of the conversation.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, it was intended to be a humor piece, but I think it highlights a Murphy's Law-type truism that my blacksmithing mentor described as The Inherent Perversity of Inanimate Objects.
Events like you (and the unremembered author) discuss are the kinds of coincidences that convince some people that every thing that we see has a spirit. You, obviously, offended the spirit (which doubtless provides the motive power) of your Honda.
Which, after a reading of "Let the Galaxy Burn" provides me with all manner of imagined scenarios as the tech priests down at the shop burn incense, apply holy unguents, and recite the Litany of Checking the Plug Wires to propitiate the machine spirit. (Oddly enough, the priests' alignment seems flexible: ostensibly servants of the Emperor, their bill is obviously the work of Chaos, as the mere hearing of the total cost is enough to cause a grown man to collapse in waves of wracking pain and nausia.)
The Inherent Perversity of Inanimate Objects is an excellent way to phrase it. I will begin using the phrase immediately.
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny about the machine cult, is they really only worship the machine half of the emperor. I think they view the organic half as some kind of aberration. They aren't big on organics, those guys. Still, I appreciated the reference.