Bathroom humour June 2, 2012

“So I ask you,” says Jack to me the other day, “is there anyone who hasn’t had odd or peculiar experiences with bathrooms?”

“I’m not sure I have,” I replied, “but I have just experienced someone asking me an odd question about bathrooms.  Could you perhaps expand a bit on your topic?  What seemed odd or peculiar to you.”

“The first thing occurred when I was in a western style restaurant and when I went to use the bathroom, there were two but each with a different horse’s head in a small wooden plaque in the middle of the door. “

“How could you tell the difference between the men’s room and the women’s room by what you saw on the plaque?”

“I first tried to find some clue in the features of the two horses.   Perhaps one had longer eyelashes.  Perhaps one had a more flowing mane.  One did not look any more fiery or aggressive than the other.  They were both the same size.  I thought that the woodcutter should have carved the horses from the back to give us a better clue.”

“Perhaps the bathrooms were co-ed.”

“Do you think I am a horse’s ass?  Of course the thought finally hit me but I still had to decide which one to use.  I opened each a crack and knew right away which one to use – the one on the left.”

“How did you know?”

“That was the one with the toilet seat up.”

“Very good sleuthing.”

“The next thing happened to me at a burger joint where I had to use the bathroom.   The door was locked so I asked for a key at the front desk.  There was no key I was told: the manager controlled the door from the front.   So I went back to the door and after one or two yanks it opened.  I was about to use the facilities when I heard the manager’s voice:  ‘Good!  You got in!’  This gave me pause.  Did she hear me?  Was she watching me?  I scanned the room for microphones and cameras.   Every device on the wall looked suspicious.  This put a stop to my ablutions and I exited without doing the necessaries.  I felt too embarrassed and nervous.”

“That is a bit odd, to hold conversations with your customers while they are in the bathroom.  Too bad I’m not a lawyer.   I feel a lawsuit in the making.”

“Well the last example was perhaps the most disconcerting because, in a way, it is very common.  It was one of those bathrooms with motion detectors for everything.”

“Seems normal.”

“But the designers didn’t count on a klutz like me.   I stepped away from the urinal and it flushed but I moved too close to the next one on my way to the sink and it also flushed.  At the sink, I did the obligatory to get the soap and then moved to turn the water on to wash.  Except the tap was too close to the soap dispenser and my hand kept crossing the line and dispenser kept dispensing – a kind of premature dispensation.  When I waved my hand in front of the paper towel dispenser it spit out towels on the way up and the way down.  I reached down to pick up the towel when a gentleman entered the room and bumped me all the way to the urinal which promptly flushed and splashed my face.  This necessitated another wash with soap and hand drying with predictable results.”

“I think you would be better if they had optional manual sinks, urinals and towels.   Not everyone can drive automatic.”

Stories from my life April 14, 2012

I saw my grandson dump some old tissues through the gate to the downstairs and when I went to look I also saw a kippa and a telephone.  This is apparently one of his favourite activities. Someone commented that he would gladly dump random objects into a drawer if he had one.  This reminded me that I had such a drawer at home and how I thought of it as a metaphor for a life as a series of random events and stories that held together just because they happened to the same person. Here then is a collection of such stories that did happen or could have happened to me.

When I woke in the hospital, I was informed that when I had walked through the park looking in joy and wonder at the treetops, the blue sky and the amazing cloud patterns, I had made straight for the ditch.  A week later when I awoke in the hospital again, I was informed by giggling nurses that when I was walking on the sidewalk bent on avoiding every crack and mindful of not stepping on any gum or other detritus, I did not notice I was walking under a scaffold and was hit by a brick.

I was visiting Chicago for a baseball game when I started to feel uneasy.  The team that came out on to the field was the Chicago Black Sox.  That was a team that had not existed for some time.  My unease and suspicion grew when I saw the newspaper announcing that the Chicago White Hawks had won the hockey game in overtime.  But the thing that finally convinced me I was either in another world or in a dream was when the Radio Sportscast lamented the losing streak of the basketball team, the Chicago Mad Cows.  I forced myself to wake up and smirked.  Luckily I had come awake in time to watch the baseball game on T.V., between the Chicago White Sox and the Toronto Blue Herons.

I found myself in a courtroom of a strange kind with myself and my lawyer sitting in a small stage surrounded by an amphitheatre with the judge and jury and the prosecuting attorney seated on pedestals.  My wife and children were there in the audience, holding hands and looking distraught.  Spotlights flashed on and off depending on who was speaking. I stood accused of being a not nice person and each time I denied it everyone laughed, the laughter and disdain growing when the prosecutor played video evidence of my behaviour.  My lawyer, one of my relatives, advised me to plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court.  I wanted to explain that each incident was shot from the wrong angle or left out crucial information.  The judge leaned over me, his teeth glinting in his smile.  He looked like the Rabbi from my Hebrew School.  I woke up in a sweat.  It was morning.  I went to the bathroom and splashed my face, then went down to the kitchen where my father was making coffee.  “Good morning, Dad,” I said, “I’m sorry.”  My father looked at me in complete bewilderment at first but then shaped his mouth into a rueful grin.  “Of course,” he said and continued smiling.

I was standing in the living room with my two sons, their children in the background playing with my daughter.  A high-pitched inquiring voice came from behind us.  “Daddy?” it said. We all turned at the same time and, speaking together, answered, “Yes?”  When we laughed and looked at each other, we noticed, not for the first time, that we all had the same smile.

 

My grandson, the cat February 28, 2012

While I was visiting my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in New York, I also became more closely acquainted with the family cat, an orange tabby with light green eyes, the colour of early spring, not yet the lush green of summer.

His skills included sitting and staring or just napping on the couch.  He did not react when my grandson wanted to hug him but otherwise kept his distance, the way a firstborn might.

His name was originally orange julius because of his colour but then the name kept on being shortened and transformed to julius to julie to junie, which is what everyone calls him now.

Junie never got the memo explaining that he was actually a cat although a few cat like behaviours remain to cloud his otherwise serene disposition.

Mostly he likes to be held and cuddled and kissed and stroked.  What a way to make a living!  When my son and his wife left, he wandered around the apartment looking in every room and emitting a piteous meow that sounded like a baby crying, not loud enough to wake the sleeping toddler but loud enough to unnerve me who was hearing it for the first time.

When they returned he bolted like a bat outa hell for the door and offered himself up for cuddles with the kind of crying which just begged for comforting and snuggling.

When he got what he wanted he just sat there like a Buddha with the same kind of Mona Lisa smile you see on Chinese sculptures almost as if he knew something which the rest of us did not.

And in the morning he was ready to follow me everywhere meowing for food and his almost human cry was uncanny.

He has the same physique as Garfield so I doubt that he is underfed.  Yet if he spots a bug he is an efficient killer and I understand that in their last place he had been a great mouser, catching mice and dropping them still alive, a kind of gift to his mistress, at her feet.

So, the cat in him seems to come out once in a while.  He stretches on top of the couch and starts to dig his claws into the fabric.  After a few good scratches and stretches he lies down again but this time, heaven help the human who tries to pat him.  He shows his teeth and tries to bite and takes a few bats at any approaching hand.  Such episodes are rare and he soon forgets them, coming meekly to anybody who offers him a lap.

When I went to the Central Park Zoo, I saw a Snow Leopard in his enclosure and he looked at me with the same half closed eyes and Mona Lisa smile as Junie.  Later when the leopard sprang from one rock to another, I saw how similar it was to Junie’s own leap from the floor to the counter, a four foot vertical jump.  Wherever they are, cats have to practice pouncing.

The leopard looked lonely and his tail was even longer and furrier than Junie’s but I think it might be too dangerous to have him around the house.  Junie, at least thinks he is part of the family and has already learned to make room for his little brother, although he is now closer to his daddy as only my human grandson is allowed to nurse and the cat has responded by ignoring his mother.

As I am of the correct gender, I now understand from his behavior that he has accepted me and that my absence has merited a few human sounding meows.  This is my grandson, the cat.

Highlight Weekly Thoughts February 22, 2012

I recently read an article about a new modus operandi of car thieves who steal high- end cars.   They hack into the car’s computer (it is connected to the internet) and steal the lock security information as well as the GPS location.   They then disable the lock and enable the start mechanism while informing a colleague of where to go get the car.  And voila, the car is gone.  These guys steal not your identity but your car!  Your car needs an anti-virus.  At least these thieves are probably young smart guys exercising their entrepreneurship skills.

As the article notes some cars have become “smart phones on wheels”.   But this is probably true of other high-end modes of transportation.   Jets are smart phones with wings.  Trains are smart phones on tracks and boats are smart phones with outboard motors.   All you need is a few implants and you can become a smart phone on legs. Reminds me of the Age of Dinosaurs when, instead of smart phones you could have spoken of reptiles that swam, that flew and that travelled on land. Alien visitors from other planets will conclude that smart phones are the dominant life form on earth.  The only rejoinder I can think of is, “if your phone is so smart, why ain’t it rich?”  But that sounds weak even to me as I am apparently neither rich nor smart.

By the way, my own car is smart enough to recognize a signal from a fob in my pocket when I curl my fingers around the door handle and it unlocks.   It gives onlookers the impression the car recognizes my touch.  This inspired me to imagine a future when my car would only unlock if it had a sample of my DNA.  In order to unlock the door I would have to spit on my windshield.  In such a future people would have to chew gum when out of the car in order to have enough saliva to get back in.  At least no one could hack it.

Last week, I was lying on the couch with nothing to do but contemplate the nature of the universe so I was reading a book by Steven Pinker on how meaning in our words relates to the structures of language and the structures of thought.     For instance, there is a difference between how “tell” and “say” are used that one can’t catch all the time.  It is possible to hear both these sentences without reacting to anything strange: He told it to me and He said it to me are both okay.

After all, the two verbs seem to relate to the same activity of talking but no, they aren’t the same.

He told me he was going is okay but He said me he was going* isn’t.  Try other verbs like wrote, whispered, murmured and see what fits.   If you can figure out why, you’re a linguist.

I wish I could have stopped there but as they say one thought leads to another and the phrase “contain yourself” flew into my consciousness unbidden.  This is a strange kind of command.   After all what do you usually contain besides yourself and if it wasn’t contained in you already, where would it be?  In an external hard drive? On a high shelf out of reach?  How does this command to contain oneself make sense?  Where does this self usually hang out?  I finally realized it was in my self-contained house.

These thoughts were the highlights of my week.  I tried to refrain from telling you them or saying them to you but my eagerness to share overcame my reticence.   I just couldn’t contain my self and it spilled all over the page.

How to master the laws of probability December 4, 2011

I have a friend who considers himself to be quite knowledgeable about science and its practical implications.  My friend is not named Jack although I could call him that and I am sure Jack himself will have no objections but will rather relish the chance to see his name in print. (Note from Jack:  All publicity is good publicity!) So the other day my friend sends me a note to tell me that everything that occurs in the universe happens at random and for every happening there is either a higher or lower probability of occurrence.

As he points out, the devil of it is that even things of low probability sometimes happen and some things of extremely high probability never do.  So how do actually know?

For example, he notes that the chances of his being born to his parents were extremely low as his father was shipped off to war immediately after the wedding and was promptly killed by the enemy so the chances looked slim.  As luck and random chance would have it his mother was nevertheless pregnant and he arrived into the world completely uncertain as to what would transpire.

This is chancy enough but lately, with the news that scientists seemed again to have created neutrinos that travel slightly faster than the speed of light, he has again begun to feel quite fragile.

After all the probability of finding a neutrino that traveled that fast was next to zero just a little while ago.  Yet it seems to have been found.  Besides the implication that we have to rethink even what Einstein came up with, there is also the nagging little fact that something so improbable has actually occurred.

My friend once wrote to me a while ago that the fact that his identity was born into his body was completely by random chance.  There was something irksome about the statement and I wrote back to him that our selves are not interchangeable.   His identity is his and if it were born into a different body, it would be a different identity.  I noted that his fingers wouldn’t by chance suddenly appear on my hand.  And if they did they would be my fingers.

But now that he has gotten me thinking along these lines, I am also starting to feel concerned.   Since low probability events can occur, isn’t it possible (not very probable, just possible) that his fingers might indeed someday appear on my hand?  Would I or anyone else notice?

I have taken to checking in the mirror every morning to make sure my face is still mine and that my head is still on my shoulders.  Now I know the probability  is quite low that anyone else’s reflection would greet me but can I totally exclude that possibility?

I have this sudden fear of walking down the street and suddenly being aware of having different body parts and this might happen just because…

By that I mean that the universe can often seem perverse and it can unfold as if to mess you up on purpose.   If something is not very probable, that is precisely the thing that will occur.  On purpose.

So if you see me walking down the street avoiding cracks you’ll know I am trying to avoid giving the universe any excuse for perversity.

My mother used to spit three times to ward off evil but I think it was just a scientific device to prevent perverse low probability events from happening because if you don’t take precautionary measures…well we all know Murphy’s Law.

If you ever feel someone else’s head suddenly appearing on your shoulders, just make sure to turn around three times and spit in the four basic directions.   I do this and I haven’t changed heads, fingers or selves in years.

Jack: what I sacrificed for sister’s dessert October 27, 2010

Hi, I’m Rubin’s friend Jack.  He asked me to write the column today because he is too busy resting.  Strange guy.

So I thought I would explain why I was in Collingwood with my wife to make up.

Here is what our argument was all about.

My sister and her husband invited us over to their house along with another couple, for a delicious home cooked meal.  And can my sister cook!  Everything has such a tam, the way I remember my mother cooked and she especially makes fabulous desserts.  Only she has the secret to how my mother made pineapple cake and apple strudel. 

My wife could never get a straight answer from my mother who always left out an important ingredient.  Once she said she used two cups of flour in a cake.  I was suspicious so I went to the cupboard and took out a measuring cup and asked if this was the measuring cup she meant.  “Oh no,” she said, went to the cupboard and took out some random tea cup.

I felt really lucky to be able to eat at my sister’s.

Throughout the evening, the woman of the other couple was drinking like a fish.  I was sitting there just waiting for dessert.  By the end of the main course, she was half passed out.  Her husband took her out of the kitchen while no one was looking and came back without her.  My sister asked where his wife was.  The husband said she was sleeping it off on the bed upstairs but that shouldn’t interfere with the rest of a fun evening.

My sister gave her husband a kick under the table.  He said nothing.  No one said anything and to my great relief we moved on to dessert.  My sister put it all out on the table and started the coffee brewing.  Then she turned to the other husband and told him she found it uncomfortable that he was still here while his wife slept upstairs.   How long was she going to be there?  Why did he not just take her home.  My sister’s husband turned pale and gave her a look.   

The other husband, turned red and said that if that was how she felt he would get his wife and take her home.   Everyone got up, he went upstairs and came down carrying his sleeping wife like a bundle, got their coats and stormed out in silence.

I was staring at the delicious desserts and the cakes.  My mouth was watering.  Just then, my sister and her husband started a row.  He should have asked them to leave.  No, they should have waited, they were all good friends, etc.  Soon they were yelling at each other about whose job it was to handle the situation and then they stormed out to separate rooms in the house and slammed doors.

My wife and I were sitting there with delicious desserts and freshly brewed coffee.  My wife wanted to leave.  I wanted to stay and finish dessert.  It would be such a waste to leave it.  My wife started to get angry, so I said OK, we would leave.   While my wife went to get her coat, I got some snack bags and piled in some slices of strudel and cake.  No way I was going to miss this after sitting through agony, waiting for the payoff.

When we got home, my wife discovered what I had done and that lead directly to my having to get two reservations at a golf resort.  But after I ate the dessert, it was worth it!

What I learned about being a Christian September 1, 2010

I have the outward veneer of being Jewish but underneath it all, after growing up with Christians and Christian symbols all around me, I think I might have a Christian cultural base which occasionally emerges.  I know this because every time I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer or burned my tongue on hot tea, I did not scream out “Holy Moses!”  No, when I feel great pain or surprise, I yell, “Jesus Christ!”

 This is almost automatic.  I sometimes wonder if rabbis who grew up in downtown Toronto might not yell out the same thing.   This would be highly embarrassing, especially in front of members of the congregation, but I can already feel some of you imagining it.

 I learned early on that Jesus was a nice guy.  I even picked up that he was Jewish.  The teachers and preachers at our public school tried to convince me that some baby in a manger was god, but I was having none of it.  All that seemed very girly to me and my friends who were all Christian.  If they had action figures, we would have preferred the angry Jesus who went around turning over tables, or the miraculous Jesus who could walk on water.  It fed my secret rebelliousness to picture his mother trying to make Jesus take a bath.  “Stop staying on top of the water!”

When I told my mother the story of Jesus surprising all the rabbis with his learning around his bar mitzvah, all she said was, “See.  You could do that too if you went to Cheder instead of playing hookey with your friends.”

 “Jesus loves me” I learned in grade one but the tune was too namby pamby.  I preferred “Onward Christian Soldiers.”  We learned The Lord’s Prayer and when my parents heard what I had to say, they were not particularly upset – it sounded a lot like the English translation of Jewish prayers we said in the synagogue.  It was the teachers themselves who started to be very concerned that I was feeling uncomfortable and offered to excuse me but I hated being singled out so I just stayed in and mumbled the thing just loud enough for the other kids to hear me saying something.

I learned other tricks as I grew older.  “God rest ye merry gentlemen” now had the line “Remember what’s his name was born on Christmas Day”.  As long I didn’t say it too loud, no one noticed.

 The great thing about being Christian was you got all these presents at Christmas time – actual toys instead of a silver dollar for Ch anu ka gelt.  This is called comparative religion.  I loved to go out caroling because you got more chocolate than at Halloween and I learned later, Halloween wasn’t even Christian!  None of my Christian buddies would have believed it!  My great moral lesson from caroling in winter was never to eat yellow snow because it could make you sick.

 My neighbour, my older brother’s best friend, took me to Sunday School a few times where I learned more hymns from the United Church song book.  I remember being fascinated by the song “bringing in the sheaves”because I had no idea what they were or why you would want to bring them in.   And it was good to know that we had a friend in Jesus.  I thought I would rather be his friend when he started getting angry and throwing around some of those miracles.   Ahhh innocence!

 I confess I cannot help knowing these things and when I was four and the rabbi asked, I said my favourite song was Rudolph the Red Nosed  Reindeer.  So if you ever hear me say “Jesus Christ” in a culturally appropriate way, just turn the other cheek and ear and pretend you didn’t hear it.

How I learned about girls May 31, 2010

By the time I was eight or nine I had had a few girl friends, with whom I played, the way I played with the guys.  I just got along with them better.   But I would get invited over, especially to the home of the sisters, Eva and Lily, where I would be the only boy present.
    
Sometimes, the two sisters and I slid down the rough slopes of Rosedale Ravine just behind their backyard on Bloor Street .  Sore from the ride down the hill, we followed the dirt road around to Riverdale Zoo.

At the end of our hour long hike, we got to spend time at the zoo, looking at decrepit lions, dirty mountain goats and chimpanzees who seemed to pass their days shrieking and playing chase or sitting in the corner chewing their toes and rubbing themselves in ways I did not understand at the time. 
 

On this day, one chimp in particular was playing up to the crowd and would swing and make faces for peanuts.  She took a paper candy floss cone and stuck it on her head.   Everyone laughed.  She licked it and stuck it in her nose.  More laughter.  She stuck it in her ear amid even more hilarity.  Then she bent over as people were still laughing and stuck the cone ‘where the sun don’t shine.”  Sudden shocked silence.  Mothers hustled their children away and we were left with an abruptly silent chimp cage and a chimp sitting in a corner, a discarded cone still near the bars.  I had turned red and averted my eyes. 

When we got back to their house, Eva and Lily seemed to remember my discomfort and whispered together and giggled.  I started to feel a sense of dread as we entered their room.  Their younger girl cousin was also there as she had come over to play.  Like them, she was lithe, with blonde hair and blue eyes.   Something about their giggling together made me nervous.  I could feel myself breaking into a cold and clammy sweat.

Lily, the younger girl, came up close and asked, “Don’t you know that boys and girls are different?”
 

“They’re the same,” I said, “that’s what my mom told me.”  This elicited gales of laughter all around.
 

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard, “Lily said .   “Here, look.”  She stood up and pulled down her pants and panties.  “See, we’re different.”
 

I felt a dense fog fall over my eyes.  I could not see clearly.  I was gasping for breath as if in deep water and stumbled back against the wall.  Lily pursued me relentlessly.  “Look,” she said, coming toward me with her pants and panties around her ankles.  I was seized with the great fear that I would be struck dead and turned to face the wall, covering my eyes.  I would have done the same thing if I were a vampire turning from the cross, held in the outstretched hands of the priest.
 

Lily and her cousin were now on either side of me.   Both of them had their pants and panties down around their ankles.  “Look at us, look at us, look at us.”

They danced around me in a frenzy, while I buried my face in my hands.  My knees were buckling and my heart was racing.   “OK, OK, you’re different.  OK.”  I blurted out.  “Just leave me alone.”

Eva, the eldest, came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder.  “It’s all right,” she said, “it’s all right.  You don’t have to look. “ 

The other two girls pulled up their pants, still giggling.  Eva walked me to the door.  “Still friends?” she asked and put out her hand, that cool serene smile still playing on her lips.  Her arm was sinuous as a snake, as solid as a lifeline to a drowning man. 

My head still whirling I reached out and shook her hand in gratitude and uncertainty.  From a distance I heard myself ask, “What do girls want?”  

“The same as anybody,” she smiled, and closed the door.

Be a mensh when you give service March 4, 2010

When you are receiving a service from someone, there are many helpful and friendly things they could say.  Sometimes, however, their words can have an opposite effect.  Or at least cause a certain doubt or concern about what is about to happen.

 So I have two cars, which I take in to two different dealerships.  In one the service is personal, all the people know me and my wife, and even have some notion of how many children we have.  They all seem under 40.  Whenever they look in the computer, they bring to my attention some scheduled service I haven’t had done yet.  In the other, the intake guy  is close to 60, doesn’t seem to know me from Adam, doesn’t remember anything about my car and never asks me anything other than my mileage and what particular thing I would like to pay for that day.  They don’t check on too many things that I don’t ask for, unless I specifically ask them to do it.  The only reason I go there is that they have a monopoly on providing service to my brand of car, at least until my warranty runs out.

In either place, though, if the first words out of their mouth are, “so how many days can you leave it with us?”  I know am in for trouble and an empty chequing account.  My other favourite is, “we don’t have parts you need in stock and we’ll have to order them in.”  And how long will that take pray tell?  Who knows?  You get the feeling it’s like the lottery.  They put in a request for the part and it could come that day or in three weeks.  In the meantime, is there anything you can do about it.  No.  They have you my friend and you can already feel your pockets hurting.  Never mind that it is steaming hot outside and you are trying to repair your air conditioning.  You will wait.  Of course.  When else would the air conditioning on everyone’s car break down except during a hot spell when they are overusing it?  Consequently, there is a shortage of parts.

But car dealerships are not the only place where such things happen.  I have had to use a clinic a few times lately as my regular doctor was not available.  Again, depending on the mood of the person you are seeing, they can make you feel important or like another body on the assembly line.   The last time I went, I was the last patient and as soon as I was admitted to see the doctor, he came in and we exchanged pleasantries.  I asked him how he was and he replied, “Well, I’ll be a lot happier once I get out of here and go home.”   It is at this point that a small doubt entered my head about whether the doctor would pay close attention to my problem or just go for the quickest and easiest solution.  In fact, he ended up telling me to just continue what I was doing only more so.

 The doctor went home early and so did I feeling that I would get the same interaction with a computer program except that the program would never tell me it was in a hurry to leave.   Apparently machines can have their warm and fuzzy side too.

 So, if it is ever your lot to provide a service, just show that milk of human kindness.  Be a mensh.

Wild Machine Kingdom February 24, 2008

I have been sitting here in front of the computer for a few hours, trying to print out all the documents I need and it has gradually dawned on me that, in reality, machines are like animals that we only occasionally control.  How else explain it? My printer, my photocopier and my fax machine are like dogs.   When they are happy and well fed with toner, they seem to swallow everything you send their way, process it and produce the final product almost playfully, which I then scoop with relaxed fingers from the output tray.  Their lights light up, the air blows, and they almost seem to smile as the motor whirrs and the paper flies through.  They need constant care and grooming. But when they are unhappy, they chew up everything and spit it out.  Sometimes they grab hold of a piece of paper and hold it mangled and you have to cajole them, pet their removable trays and slide them in oh so slowly in order not to disturb the sleeping beast.   As the paper slowly mashes in their teeth, I can hear a growl coming from the depths. Or perhaps that is me reacting to 15^th “blocked pathway” in a row.  And every time that happens, one has to perform major surgery, pull the handles, turn the knobs, gradually pull on loose sheets.  Almost like a sick puppy. My television set and computer are more like felines.  They don’t actually seem to care whether I am around.  All they want is for me to turn them on and then I might as well go upstairs and read a book.  They’ll just keep on going and doing their own thing, thank you very much.   Sometimes when I turn them off, it is as if they are still watching with one red or green glowing eye.  Apparently they could pounce at any moment.  The computer in particular is very picky and only responds to commands on alternate days. And the computer loves playing with the mouse.  It will tease the mouse as if letting it run free and suddenly refuse to recognize its input unless I put my whole weight on it as I try to exit the file.  In a clever manoeuvre, the computer tricks me and suddenly over reads my motion so instead of exiting I seem to have deleted what I was writing.  Sometimes I try petting it and it responds when no one is looking.  The minute I actually need something urgently, of course, it malfunctions.  Fatal error!  Of course that’s the things about machines and animals.  You never know when they’ll turn on you.    Cars are all female.  Must be because every time I take it into my old garage the mechanic asks, “how’s she runnin’ today?”  “She’s runnin’ pretty good,” I say, “but I think she needs some oil and a lube job.”   Do women call their cars “he”?  “How’s he doin’ this week?”  “He’s alright but I’m worried about his spare tire.”   Hmmm.  This is beginning to sound familiar. The worst are those small rodents, the cell phones.  They scurry all over you and end up in every pocket you can’t reach, especially when they start ringing.   And they are a playful lot.   My cell phone in particular has the habit of wriggling out of my hand while I am driving and landing between my legs.   I stop the car to retrieve it but inevitably that’s when the bus pulls up beside me and all the passengers look down at me in amusement, shock and horror.  Mothers cover their children’s faces, even as I try to point to my crotch and my ear simultaneously to try to explain.   I’m not sure what message they get from that but as you no doubt have guessed by the time I find the phone, it stops ringing.   So, just remember to be kind to your technological friends. It’ll make you feel good inside, even if it has no other practical effect.