things fall apart

No, this post will be nothing like the genius of Achebe's classic Nigerian novel. But it is about things falling apart, no less.

Yesterday, I mentioned that our car finally gave up the ghost. Later, I was thinking about it and realized that lots of other things had been falling apart and I wanted you to share in the humor of it.

Let's start our little junkyard tour in the garage with our Ford. I left a part out of the story: before yesterday's fiasco entitled Troy Vs. The Volcano, we went through a phase with our car where, to fully latch the driver's door closed, Heather had to roll down her window to apply leverage from the outside and lock the door from the inside to keep it closed. Then, a few weeks ago, the situation deteriorated even more: the door wouldn't latch AT ALL, even with our little tricks. So, we had to use a luggage rack strap (wrapped around her seat and through the door frame) to hold it shut. For this to work, however, the door now had to remain permanently closed. That posed a difficulty because, when our car is parked in its designated spot for our apartment building, it is parked right beside a pillar that makes it impossible to get in the passenger side door. This left one door available for entry: the door directly behind the driver's door. This meant that, to use the car, Heather had to get in the back door without scratching the new white BMW next to our car, climb diagonally into the front-side passenger seat, veer left to hoist herself over the gear stick and slip into the driver's seat. Packing herself into a piece of hand-luggage would have been easier.

Okay, let's move out of the garage into our home to see what other things are falling apart. You walk straight through the entry way and head into the room that holds our "fridge". I put "fridge" in quotes because it can only be considered a "fridge" in the loosest sense of the word. The only reason we keep using it is because the portable picnic cooler we have is too small, though it would work better, methinks. Here's why: our fridge is the only appliance we possess in which you can chill food on the bottom shelf and melt butter on the top.

No. Freaking. Kidding. You CAN melt butter on the top shelf. I've done it.

I call it our microwidge.

Let's retire to the living room, shall we? Here we have two more exhibits for your amusement: our main doors that lead out to the balcony no longer open. The handle pivots but the locking rod is stuck making it impossible to open the doors. It's our house's way of taunting us with dreams of enjoying the great outdoors.

Turn to your right and you see a nice, large, wide-screen TV. Let's watch something, shall we? Oops, that's right, I forgot: it's going to take 5 minutes to turn it on by repeatedly pushing the power button until your index finger forms a blister and gets infected once the blister pops.

Ah, now. The TV's on. What's that, you say? Oh, don't worry about it, the picture looks like sludge right now but that'll clear up in another two minutes.

Yes, that wide black line down the right side of the screen WILL go away.

Oops, nope. It's back. Don't worry, it'll just keep coming and going.

Guess we'll give it away.

What's that? No one wants it? No wonder.

Never mind, let's proceed to our office where I'd like to print something for you. Yes, I know it's nice to have a laser printer because they sure do print fast, but it would be nice to have one that doesn't make your documents look, uh, Goth.

You need to use the bathroom? No problem, let me just tell you a couple little things about this bathroom.

First, you'll need to pull a string to flush the toilet. If we put the metal flushing mechanism back on, the toilet just runs and runs and runs. To flush it properly you'll have to hold the string up until all the, uh, "stuff" goes down.

If you want to take a shower you should know that the shower in here used to perform like it had an enlarged prostate. Water went everywhere but where you thought it was aiming. In fact, see how the shower door leaves about a twelve inch opening at the top to let steam out? Well, yeh: that's where the water sprays. So, just hold the shower head with one hand while lathering with the other, okay?

Coming out of the bathroom, you should know that two-thirds of the light switches in the hallway do nothing. That's right: nuthin'. You'll notice I put duct tape over one or two of them. I find the silver color adds to the delicate decor.

Finally, let's meander into the laundry room. See the washer? Well, you need to figure that about half the water will end up on the floor in front of the machine when you use it, so best to put a towel down there to absorb the flood.

I think that's about it. Oh, yes, I forgot one more thing: I think my sanity is falling apart, too.

Tour over.