Rage against the machine.

Before I became the wisened, mature, matronly type of gal I am now, I had the particularly satisfying habit of - as an ex-boyfriend called it -"beating the hell out of inanimate objects."

This habit consisted of, well...mainly beating the hell out of inanimate objects. For the most part.

In my defense, they totally deserved it. I was only giving them what they so richly had coming. But he found it disturbing nonetheless, so I tried to cut back and would only kick my car or smack the side of the television or throw myself violently into a stuck door when he wasn't around.

The relationship ended anyway, but those of you who know me in real life know that my sophisticated and genteel manner remained. And it's probably a good thing, too, as occasional slip-ups (one memorable incident where I ever so gently applied a BFH* to the icemaker, par example', have proven to scare both young children, innocent spouses and domesticated animals. (Although the icemaker has not given me a lick of trouble since.)


I write here today only to seek your support to keep me from smashing the living hell out of my dryer, whom I previously loved With. All. My. Heart. It is beautiful and shapely and has logo badges so exquisitely reminiscent of a vintage automobile that I matched my laundry room tile to them.

After twelve years of faithful service, it has suddenly decided that all my clothes are better suited for a four-year-old than me. "Ahhh," you say, "Little Girl, use your Big Glasses and see the light! You should not dry your apparel! Rather, you should take all damned day to spread it jauntily around your home! It should lay or lie or whatever perfectly flat and air dry! Afterall, that's how the pioneers did it, and you never saw Laura Ingalls Wilder bitching that her tank top was the width of a iPhone!"

That'd be great, dear helpful reader, but here's the thing. The freakin' washer is in on it. My lovely, reliable, kind and wonderful front load dream washer with matching vintage automobile logo on the front is either in cahoots with the 2000 degree as only setting dryer or it's being seriously peer pressured to ruin me. It spends the entire wash cycle carefully taking my shrinkable tops, my air-dry-only shorts and my "fine washables" and hiding them - sneaking them into other clothes where they cannot be found until after the dryer has done her evil deed and I am left to open the door to the steaming horror of an organic cotton sweater now just an organic cotton ball.

So I'm just saying, I'm probably going off the wagon. If you hear crashing, pounding, perhaps blow-torching...that's me. This bitch ain't goin' down without a fight. You hear me, inanimate object?


*BFH - Big effin hammer, for those of you not violently inclined.