Over the weekend, The Viking and I – mostly The Viking – had to replace our Garage Door Opener because it inconveniently and selfishly died.
We took down the dead and useless Door Opener and then began assembling the new unit. It was all very straight forward, no big surprises, until The Viking went rogue. He threw the instruction manual into the corner and began fiddling with electrical wires.
Me: Why aren’t you electrocuted?!
The Viking: What? There’s no power to these lines.
Me: The wires are coming right out of the ceiling, the breaker hasn’t been flipped, so why aren’t you electrocuted?!
The Viking: These wires get their power from the garage door opener brains, not from the building’s power supply.
Me: Stop talking in Sorcery! The brains are plugged in! I can see the power cord plugged into the power plug!
The Viking: Relax! Take it easy. I know what I’m doing.
Me: …….
Me: …….
Me: …….
Me: I will never understand electricity. It’s terrifying.
He carried on with his Warlockery and I watched him.
Me: I can’t believe I’ve lived for this long without understanding electricity. I stuck a knife in an electrical socket once because my mother told me to never do that. Ever.
The Viking: And so you did.
Me: Of course I did. You can’t just tell me not to do something without telling me why.
The Viking: Well, you obviously didn’t die.
Me: Exactly. It hurt, but I didn’t die, and my curiosity was gone. My parents could have spared me that.
Me: I also stuck my head in a plastic Drycleaning bag because there was a warning on it that said to never do that. Again, they never said why.
The Viking: Seriously?
Me: Yes. And I didn’t suffocate. Now that I think about it though, I think the warning did mention ‘Suffocation’ but I was like 6 years old and didn’t have a clue what that meant.
The Viking: …..
Me: My best friend found a box of wooden matches once. They looked harmless but apparently they were ‘extremely dangerous’ and children should never play with them.
The Viking: Let me guess….
Me: See?! You know already what needed to be done! We tried to light the wooden fence on fire but it wouldn’t burn. We tried to set the grass on fire too, but that wouldn’t work either. The only thing that actually did work was burning our fingers. And then I got a spanking, like having burned fingers weren’t punishment enough, because Darcy apparently didn’t know how to lie. I couldn’t be friends with him after that.
The Viking: Hahaha!
Me: And pull cords on blinds.
The Viking: You didn’t!
Me: Actually, yes. I did.
The Viking stopped what he was fiddling with and looked at me with an odd expression on his face. “You sound like your daughter.”
Me: That’s impossible because I made certain that I explained things to her. Don’t put a knife in an electrical outlet because electricity, through sorcery, will enter the knife, travel through your arm and straight upward because of gravity or something and blow your head completely off your body. And guess what? She never stuck a knife in an electrical outlet.
The Viking: That’s not how electricity works.
Me: Does it really matter? The point is that she never electrocuted herself because she listened to me. Unlike you who will die at some point this afternoon because you keep touching electrical wires.
The Viking: I’m not going to die today.
Me: I feel like a kid when my Dad took me to work with him and I had to sit around doing absolutely nothing for hours because there might be bears around.
The Viking: …..
Me: There were only so many times I could be interested in what was in the glove compartment. And without the truck running fiddling with the radio buttons was less than satisfying.
The Viking: …..
Me: I did find a magazine full of naked women behind the seat. Dad took it away from me and then made another worker take me home. He said he had an emergency to deal with but I didn’t buy it.
The Viking: …..
Me: He did explain the perils of playing with the gear shifter when the truck was running but he never left it running. He must not have trusted my judgement.
The Viking: …..
Me: There were old pallets at Dad’s job and he wanted to take them apart and use them for something else. He gave me a hammer and told me to get all the nails out but I accidentally stepped on a nail as I was pulling a nail from another piece of wood. I didn’t even get a tetanus shot. Oh! And one time I had a really, really sore throat so he painted my tonsils with MercuroChrome. It’s toxic to the environment but not tonsils I guess. I’m lucky to even be alive!
The Viking: …..
Me: Hey! Did I ever tell you that I know how to pick a lock on an interior door? So if you were to lock the bathroom door and then accidentally faint I would be able to pick the lock and save you.
The Viking: I never lock the bathroom door.
Me: I’ve just noticed that when I get bored my mind has a tendency to wander a bit.
The Viking: You think?
Me: I’m seriously bored. I didn’t think it would take this amount of time to replace a door opener. I would have brought booze and a book if I had known. Maybe a pillow for a nap. And a fuzzy blanket. Or binoculars. That might have amused me for a little while.
You’re not even listening to me anymore.