Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

There are times in life when inanimate objects seem alive. If virtually everything that you see, hear, smell, feel or taste seems to flash, beep, stink, cut or make you sick, you need help. However, I suspect it is only pride that suppresses disclosure of feelings that, yes, sometimes things that are bloodless and without warmth move, change, start and stop on their own. Although there might have been a time when a bicycle unaccountably threw us to the pavement that led to tender nursing or when a table moved into our way and we fell to the floor where we found the lost $100 bill, more likely pain is the only result of the bicycle fall and the floor doesn't yield money, only dust.

Right here in Sequim, for some there are roundabouts that don't remain round. They constantly change shape so that only the driver's quick reaction saves a crash. There are huge stores with aisles and baffling signs that change with each visit, frustrating our shopping. And, has your driving ever been blocked by a slow-moving parade of automobiles on Washington Street and you could swear you see the same car pass by over and over?

Secretly, I have often felt like doing exactly what a Minnesota homeowner has: He shot his lawn mower. Why? From one perspective, it was because he was drunk. However, it wouldn't start and not for the first time, I suspect. Not only have I been tempted to terminally punish my recalcitrant lawn mower, but my weed-eater, my yard-blower and my sprayer might only have been saved by sobriety.

Here are a few of my candidates for annihilation:

My computer. Oh yes, my computer, top of the list. Personal computers that began as Apples are now more like lemons. There is no end to the mysterious antics of the neurotic fruit a sadistic god has given us. I admit that, when a computer does what it's supposed to, it is a marvel. I almost never fail to receive some kind of answer to a question. As an example, for this column I asked for "Death by shotgun." The Internet showed me more than 3 million Web sites from "Shotgun death at aniBoom" to "Death Rides Shotgun." Then I went after country song lyrics and found, "The Night Bubba Shot the Jukebox."

That's the good news. Sometimes I wonder if my computer hasn't already been shot. With no input from me, it changes fonts, different designs of letters, willy-nilly. When that happens, those that I have used in saved text, back files, change too: Bye bye back files.

It skips words, repeats words, fails to access the Internet for no apparent reason and opens a file I didn't ask for. As if it was human, it's sluggish in the morning and picks up pace in the evening ... and on and on. I get so frustrated I think maybe shooting is too good for it; it should be hung.

My garden hose ... no, my garden hoses. When you buy a garden hose, it is perfectly coiled - for the last time. My hoses resist every effort to neatly coil them after use. They require constant twisting just to get them into something that even resembles an ellipse. Here's a case where ammunition can be saved: Chop it into oblivion.

Turn signals on my car. This is one that could use each barrel of a shotgun: One for the signal and one for the car behind me. My unretracted turn signal makes the horn in the car following me blare. Am I the only one who sometimes forgets? And often when it happens, I could swear I hadn't used the prankster for days.

Incidentally, don't take these words as advice to shoot up stuff. After the woman who lives with him ratted him out, the guy in Minnesota who shot his lawn mower faces a fine of up to $11,000 and more than six years in prison. Some murderers get less.

Louis Howard lives in Agnew. He has written columns for The Reporter in the Sacramento Valley and the Sequim Gazette.