Everything
waits for winter to break. It does it on
purpose, you know that it does. If a light
fixture outside breaks in the summer, you are
more than happy to go out and fix it. Heck, it
is even a pleasure, what with the warm weather
and the sun shining till well after you are in
bed, waiting for you to read a few pages and put
away your book before setting. But noooo...
Stuff has a secret malicious side. It sits
around month after month, taking all the abuse
we dish out, observing our every move and biding
their time. Then comes winter, and it is dark by
the time you get out of the shower in the
morning, and you are tired from a late night at
the cc, and have to go straight to bed after
work because you are on for a graveyard shift
the next night, and wham!, all your stuff leaps
out at you all at once. Suddenly the toilet
starts running constantly for no good reason at
all. Fiddle as you might with all the floats and
paddles and heat sinks and dip-switch settings,
the stupid toilet just will not stop running, so
you have to go to bed and try to sleep despite
the high-pitched whine of your water bill going
through the roof. Then the motion-sensing light
in the back yard suddenly decides that, really,
all life is motion, and thus to ever turn off
would be to do an injustice to the
multi-splendored glory all around it, so it
stays on for five minutes, turns off for five
seconds, and then randomly clicks back on for no
good reason. You know it is not the dog, because
the dog is in the room with you. Burglars, you
worry? But it is just your stuff, ganging up on
you. The stairs choose this moment to extend out
that extra inch and stub the heck out of your
toe. The shower decides that it has a new secret
code and starts a slow but constant drip for
those who do not know exactly how to turn off
its faucets. And it is just too damned cold to
do anything about it.