I have never got over the feeling that, if I go out and leave the house untidy, a seraph
will appear, clipboard under wing, to point out my error. Whereupon, chastened, I will go to straighten up and make the bed (which I leave open for a purpose – airing, mite killing), fold the towel, put the washing where it should be, leaving the house in apple pie order. I don’t know where this comes from,
I have never been punished for an untidy room.
Indeed I only remember being struck once which taught me the crossover between rage and fear – something we could do with recalling now. No blows at school (hooray for Simon Mills who usefully highlights the sheer humiliation of having incurred punishment) and God bless state education. An earlier model, certainly, but nevertheless …
My mother – and it really was my mother, division of labour, less a victim than anybody I can think of – kept us clean and decent (her phrase). She cooked well, often conjuring something out of nothing, shopped (till she taught me), washed everything by hand except the bed linen that went to the laundry, ironed – but my mother hated housework.
One of my earliest memories is of her saying crossly to the vacuum “Oh for goodness’ sake, you’re a machine !
Do as you’re told.” Nowadays this would probably result in a rights case and anyway, the machine would have a computer which would register disapproval.
I remember the Slovene engineer who oversaw the end of my beloved family sized washing machine (it didn’t owe anybody a farthing) with the prescient comment “None of them are the same or as good, and the next one will have a computer.” I thought he was joking.
Wal told me that the engineer who oversaw the demise of his name brand had said all washing machines are the same – so when mine gave up, he arranged for me to take delivery of the same model he has which I walked round warily until Buns told me that the eco programme
might be slow but it was thorough and used less electricity than anything else.
I have got better. The extremely expensive to fit boiler has gone squiffy so that in the first few days of warm weather for ages, the heating is on – very low – but on. I was slow to recognise this, you don’t spend much time near radiators when the sun is shining, but after the debacle with EDF, I am very aware of the price of energy. I rang the boiler company – the appliance is still under warranty, an engineer will come on Saturday. But that’s another several days – so – at 5.43 the next morning I switched the boiler off.
You would have done it ages ago. Quite right. But you do not have the profound sense of maladroit that I have in my hands. I am a domestic craven, and part of the problem is that I am sure I have only to touch these things for them to go awry.
For this reason, once I have put the washing in, I go out. The worst that can happen is that the whole thing implodes, there will be water all over the floor and I will have to start again. So be it. I just can’t cope with the pause.
In that pause I lose whatever bottle I had. I knew where I was with the old machine and it never failed. The new machine does what it is permitted to do and I have to get on with that. That machine knows something I don’t know and I want to hide.
What is interesting is that this only applies in this part of my life. I don’t drive, it’s true, though I did learn (thank you Dan) to manage the computer well enough to make annalog possible though after all this time, when something goes wrong at the other end of putting the blog up, I want to crow “See ! Not my fault this time.” And wash my hands in fairy dew.
Update: the boiler is OK, but the Peabody light (see annalog/cries unheard) is still on.
Annalog 