Showdown

Outside of Hollywood cinema, love-hate relationships are rarely entertaining. I'm having just such a relationship with my sewing machine. It ain't pretty. Yesterday the thing decided to have a hissy fit and choke up on me in the middle of a project. I know... timing is everything, and Murphy never even takes a freakin' nap.. Of course, I cursed at it. Tried it again. Cursed some more. Tried again. Cursed. Flung a wad of fabric across the room. Cursed. Tried again. Then folded my arms in a huff and uttered a string of expletives that would make my mother reach for the nearest bar of soap.


I got up and walked away, muttering, as I turned to look at the machine, "Don't even think I'm through with you!" I was frustrated because a machine was making me feel like a failure. A mere machine! A blankety-blank, bleep-bleep, feathermucker of a machine! I'm not gonna take that. I'm smarter than a machine. Most of the time.


I went out on the deck and watched the clouds sweeping by on the wind. I heated up some left over coffee. I paced. Opened the fridge four times in search of some kind of answer. Of course, we all know the answer is never in the ice box, but regardless, it's where we tend to look. Finally, I stomped back up the stairs, along with a well placed, "Dammit!" Stood in the doorway of my studio, glaring at The Machine. It sat there, so still and oh, so smug. Its needle glimmered and beckoned, trying to pull some Sleeping Beauty hoodoo on me. Thread was wound everwhere like a waiting snake. Again, "Dammit!" I marched forward, Clint Eastwood glint in my eye, tongue between my teeth as I sneered. I lowered my voice to an equally Clint-esque growl and said, "You're just a machine. You have no power over me."


I took a deep breath. I sat down. I poked my index finger at the beast's plastic chest, and said, still channeling Clint, "Obey." In a moment of brilliance, I changed out the thread and bobbin. I plucked a piece of scrap fabric off the floor. Again I poked the beast and growled, "Obey. Dammit."


It worked. I was able to finish off my project in record time.


See... I'm only smarter than machines when I don't let them get the best of me. Granted, I should have learned this lesson years ago, but sometimes I'm a tad slow. Inanimate objects are always trying to steal my entire goat herd. It's partly my fault. Given my rampant imagination, I tend to anthropomorphise them into living, breathing entities. It would probably help if I didn't talk to them. Or maybe it would just help if I at least talked nice.


This time.... this time, I came out on top. Gypsy, one... sewing machine, goose egg. Yay, me.


Dammit.


~Showdown, Electric Light Orchestra