Words and Thoughts — March 28, 2024
Hello again, alleged readers. I find myself buried in a sea of the darkest lament possible. I once read a very insightful passage in Yolen and Teague’s scholarly article on colors titled, How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors? in which the color “black” is referenced. I would say that the darkness of my current lament is similar in hue to that. Alternatively, if you’ve ever spilled a medium-to-large plate of nachos, and then someone came up before you could clean it up, and as a result slipped on the nachos, thus dumping out their box of printer toner they were carrying, then you can likely appreciate the darkness of the depths to which my lament dives, far below the reaches of sunlight back on the surface, figuratively obviously. My lament is not SCUBA certified.
Neither am I.
Alas, my lamentation stems from a devastating mistake I made earlier this week. I accidentally set my microwave clock when I was trying to microwave my carrot. Instead of keying in a one, then a nine, then a zero, then another zero, for my cook time, I must’ve hit “Clock”, and then my one, nine, zero, and finally the last zero. You can, of course, imagine my utter shock when the microwave did not whir to life when I pressed “Start”. My shock quickly turned to lament (the same lament I was telling you about just a bit ago), when instead of cooking, the only thing that happened was the clock stopped blinking 12:00. I absolutely adore the blinking of the clock. It’s festive, it’s fun, and it’s consistent. Very few things in this world are all three of those things simultaneously.
Prior to my egregious mistake, in the evening, I would return home to my dark house, but there in the corner of the kitchen, cutting through the darkness would be the electric blue pulse from the microwave clock. Flashing every 1.83 seconds, like some miniature lightshow that smoked paprika is putting on for the rest of the spice rack, and the condiments too, if I forgot to put them back in the fridge. The flashing is so exact, I use it to set my watch: first I go look at the clock with all the Corvettes on it in my neighbor’s garage, then I start counting estimated seconds as I climb out of my neighbor’s garage window, run across the yard, and into my house, and ultimately into my kitchen. I then retroactively adjust my second count once I lock in on the rhythm of the flashing, and can then adjust my watch to Corvette clock time plus the seconds elapsed from garage to kitchen.
Yet, I have ruined everything. The microwave clock flashes no more. I am stuck in a cold pit of lament, and regret, until the next power outage. And who knows when that will be. I’ve already been “spoken to” about climbing the power pole out front, so I don’t think I can get to the power line. Plus, the squirrels are very territorial.
Unrelated, if any of you see my co-worker, Derek, can you ask him how my basketball bracket is doing?