A few weeks ago at a charity golf outing,
I won a really nice raffle prize: a brand new white golf shirt. It looked just
like something you’d see a professional golfer wear on TV. I tried it on and it
fit perfectly. I felt just like a sweet-swinging tour pro, right up until the
moment I grabbed a club and took a practice swing. Then I instantly reverted
back to my old self, the left-handed lunging hacker. (Wouldn’t “Left-handed Lunging
Hackers” make a good name for a rock band?)
Anyway, as I was enjoying fantasies of
hitting the ball long and straight, engendered by my sparkling new white shirt,
unbeknownst to me a series of urgent messages were being communicated across a
high-speed network. The first message sent was this: “Whoa, the guy who got a
C-minus in Freshman English just wrote the words ‘engendered’ and ‘unbeknownst’
in the same sentence. Whose work is he plagiarizing now?”
Unlike the plodding and congested
Internet, with which we’re all familiar, this little-known network uses no
wires and no computer servers. It operates exclusively with instantaneous
telepathic thoughts shared between inanimate objects. As soon as I claimed my
raffle prize, an observant bottle of ketchup at the banquet facility sent a
message to his cousin, the bottle of ketchup in my refrigerator at home. Here
is the message that was sent: “Alert! He just got a brand new white shirt!”
That bottle of ketchup then promptly
sent out the word to other items in my house: the bottle of mustard to his
immediate right, the coffee mugs in a cabinet above the sink, and the jar of
spaghetti sauce on a shelf next to the oven. Everyone leaped into action. Both
the ketchup and mustard bottles started forming crusty films at their tops,
which would prevent anything from exiting smoothly. Then they started inhaling
to build up pressure within each respective container, sure to cause a sudden
and violent discharge.
The coffee mugs shifted on their shelf,
clearing a path for one mug in the far reaches of the cupboard to make its way
to the front. This long-forgotten mug has a slight crack on the rim, perfect
for allowing coffee to trickle out and dribble down the side of the mug and
onto the drinker’s chest.
The jar of spaghetti sauce took no
action, other than offering a knowing smile. He understood there was nothing
special to prepare, as the left-handed lunging hacker’s eating habits were just
as hurried and awkward as his golf swing. As the various objects made
preparations, high-pitched giggling filled the kitchen.
Other items in the vicinity were copied
as the urgent messages flew back and forth. Many offered to assist if needed. The
Chevy Equinox began to form a film of tree pollen and dirt on its radiator grille,
and placed an isolated clump of dried leaves on the center of the hood,
strategically arranged to attract someone to lean over and brush them off. Oily
rags sitting high on a shelf in the garage unfurled themselves so that the
oiliest edge was now hanging down at shoulder height right by the doorway
connecting the garage to the basement.
Needless to say, within one week of
winning that shiny new white golf shirt, I was standing by the washing machine,
frantically rubbing a stain-remover onto various red, yellow, and brown splotches.
A half-hour later, when I pulled the shirt out of the washer and held it up, colorful
smudges still were quite visible. I shrugged my shoulders and said to myself,
“Oh well, I guess I can still wear this while working around the yard.”
At that moment, I swear I heard
high-pitched giggling.
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