The first time I realized appliances could talk to me was right after I got back from Vietnam. At that point, I was hyper “tuned in”  to my surroundings, so when my clock informed me that the refrigerator was poisoning me, and that I should move my bed over to Mr. Lennox the Furnace’s area, it all seemed, well, normal. Yeah. I know.

Thus it was that I was a shoe-in for a life of appliance repair, for which I had a definite advantage because they would talk to me, tell me about their aches and pains,  gossip about the other appliances. That gave me a head start at what was going wrong with them.

That made it easy to fix them. Oh, sure, there were the ones that were confused about stuff, or were out and out insane, or frankly wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them right in the, well, you know.

So when I went down to the basement world last night, it was because General Electric issued an A.E. to me. (Appliance Emergency.) And yes, I should say it was.

GE said that there was some kind of rebellion afoot. (Well, not “afoot,” but more like “a-adjuster pad,” since they don’t have feet.) I asked him what kind of rebellion.

GE said: “Dave Lennox the Furnace is afraid to come to work because the election—which they just had—is not valid due to voter fraud.” 

I went over to Dave’s side of the basement and asked him where he heard that? He replied: “Sir Nautilus the Water Heater told me.” I then asked him if Sir Nautilus had any proof? To which he replied: “Well, he’s always been in the flow of things, so I assumed he was truthful.”

I proceeded over to Sir N.’s corner, and asked him where exactly did he come up with this information? To which he replied: “I was told this by Lady Kenmore the Dryer.” Oh. Oh, boy. Lady K. is a staunch supporter of the ARA, the Appliance Rifle Association, and up until not that long ago, was the only dryer in existence to have gotten herself shot.

That really wasn’t her fault. I forgot about those .22 rounds that I left in my pocket, but after they shot a couple of holes in her heat exchanger, she’s insisted that she needs to carry a gun for self defense.

“Hey, Lady Kenmore, where did you hear about the election being a fraud?” I asked.

She said: “It’s pretty common knowledge in the media, isn’t it?” And where, I asked her, since she isn’t a radio or TV or anything that would receive air waves, did she get that?

“I got it,” she said,” from Sony the Smart TV.”

I turned Smart Sony on, and said: “Where exactly did you come up with the fact that the election down here in the basement was swayed by illegal ballots?”

He replied: “I said nothing of the sort.”

“Well,” I said, “you must have said something about elections?”

“Yes, I did. I said that the elections in Russia are a fraud, so it could happen anywhere.”

Oh. So you told The Water Heater­—who changed “could” to “would”­who told The Furnace­­—who changed “would” to “was”— who told The Dryer Who Wants a Gun that all elections are a fraud?

“Well,” said Smart Sony, “I guess it did get kind of out of hand.”

I showed SS the 15 ballots from the election, which proved that he got beat fair and square, to which he replied: “I want to talk to The Ballot Machine, that’s where it went crooked, I know it.”

Sorry, SS, no machine to blame here, you guys counted these by hand  foot , whatever.

He still doesn’t believe me.

Boy, appliances can sure be stubborn, can’t they.