2004 01 06

There are times, rare ones, when I am absolutely dumb - dumb in the brain sense, not dumb in the unable to speak sense. If I were ever truly lost for words, it would be an immediate sign of some looming apocalypse. I blame my dumbness on genetic inheritance from the Williamson and Taylor clans. The Frasers, as disgusting as they are as people, were not stupid. Perverted, pedophilic, alcoholic, and abusive, but not stupid.

This brings me to the obnoxiously loud machine about seven feet behind me in my dining area. No, it's not me throwing my voice, it's my microwave. That thing is annoyingly loud, irritatingly loud, tv-drowning loud, so when it's done nuking my pre-fab meals, I know it. How could I not? It rivals a backing-up truck in levels of decibels when it beeps that it's done slaving for me.

That said, I want to know why it feels it must remind me that it's done. If I don't get right on the stick and get my once frozen snack out of there, it'll beep, and beep, and beep until I go over there and shut it up. I just want to know, really, how dumb the makers of this particular brand of microwave think the general population is, that they feel that the unwashed, hungry masses need that much reminding that their food is now ready for body processing?

If you're hungry, don't you continue in that state unless acted upon by an outside food source? Isn't this one of the Fig Newtonian laws?