However many posts Megan and I write about your safety freak tendencies, we never seem to cover off on everything. A few forgotten: toasters and tires.
First, toasters. I was lead to believe (by you) that if someone were to stick a knife or a fork in a toaster, then that person and everyone in the room would instantly die. This extended to even going near a toaster with a knife or a fork: instant death. You might never have actually said these exact words, but the gravity with which you issued warnings about utensils and toasters conveyed this exact message. Fork + toaster = instant death.
No part of me ever questioned the validity of this lesson or wondered if maybe you were exaggerating ever so slightly about the danger presented here, this was just the truth. Several years ago I was staying with a friend and her family at their lake house in upstate New York. We were all sitting around drinking coffee and having a casual breakfast one morning, when I saw my friend approaching a toaster with a fork in her hand. Oh my god. I could see it all unfolding, her intentions were clear: she was going to use that fork to retrieve the bagel from the toaster oven, and in the process she was going to kill us all. I dove across the room in slow motion, screaming "nooooo" and nearly tackled my friend. I was too late. She had already stuck the fork in the bagel, which was in the toaster, and pulled the bagel out. And you know what? Not one of us was dead. She and her father both looked at me like I was insane, and I sort of brushed it off. I knew I had to wait until later to sit alone and re-examine all of the lessons I'd learned from early childhood to adulthood.
Just a couple of days after you died, the house on Thompson Street played a terrible trick on us. I was sitting and reading (or maybe binge watching TV) in the breakfast room, and Mom was headed to bed. She came back a couple minutes later and beckoned me into the dining room. "Something weird happened," she said, "when I went to turn the lights off and now they are stuck on." She tried to turn the lights in the chandelier in the dining room off, and when she'd done so she had heard a loud pop and then the switch had ceased working. The chandelier bulbs were stuck on. The second switch in the hallway had no effect on them either. Hmmm, I thought. We didn't want to leave those lights going all night, and I was a little bit scared that there was going to be an electrical fire. I really, really wanted you to be there to deal with it. You would have known instantly what was wrong and how to fix it.
Brilliantly, I came up with the idea of unscrewing each individual lightbulb from in the chandelier to get them to turn off for the night, and we could deal with the broken switch in the morning. Covering my hand with my sweatshirt, I unscrewed the bulbs one by one. As I did so, I wondered if I was making some serious mistake that was going to cause the house to blow up. Again I really, really wished I could ask you. Would you say what I was doing was wildly insane and stupid? Or would you say that it was the right thing to do until we could get an electrician in? I had absolutely no idea, but I pretended to Mom that I was completely confident in my plan and that all was well.
As soon as Mom went to bed, I ran upstairs and woke up Marc. He grumbled from the other side of the door, what?! "Ummm," I said, "I may or may not have just set the house to blow up over night. Can you please come take a look?" Marc came downstairs and examined things and said that I had done the right thing and all was well and that the house was not going to explode overnight. However, from his slight hesitancy I could tell that what he was really thinking was that he wished he could ask you and that he should pretend for my sake that he knew what he was talking about, as I had pretended for Mom's sake.
If the seriousness of going near a toaster with a fork was what you made it out to be, I can't imagine how you would have reacted had you seen me with my sweatshirt sleeve pulled over my hand unscrewing the hot bulbs on the broken chandelier. It felt like I was breaking all the rules.
Your other obsession was spare tires. This past summer, I got a flat tire driving home from Jennifer's wedding on Long Island. I got it fixed that night, and then forgot to get a back-up spare tire. You told me that I needed to get one immediately. I said yes, sure, I will soon. You cannot drive without one, you said. Yep, I continued to placate you. Then you launched an email, text, and voicemail campaign that would have any outsider thinking you worked for the spare tire lobby. Relentless. I finally got the back up and about a week later got another flat tire on the way out of town one weekend. Triple A came to fix it, but it was too late to find a tire shop to get a back up that night. I would have to delay my trip until morning, unless I drove to Pennsylvania with no spare. The Triple A guy told me I could chance it, and I looked at him like he had suggested I stick a fork in a toaster while lying in a bathtub: "Um, no, my father would kill me if I drove without a spare." I did wait until morning, and I do have a spare tire, and I do not put utensils in toasters, and amazingly I did not start an electrical fire with the chandelier in the dining room. And I miss you.
Love a
First, toasters. I was lead to believe (by you) that if someone were to stick a knife or a fork in a toaster, then that person and everyone in the room would instantly die. This extended to even going near a toaster with a knife or a fork: instant death. You might never have actually said these exact words, but the gravity with which you issued warnings about utensils and toasters conveyed this exact message. Fork + toaster = instant death.
No part of me ever questioned the validity of this lesson or wondered if maybe you were exaggerating ever so slightly about the danger presented here, this was just the truth. Several years ago I was staying with a friend and her family at their lake house in upstate New York. We were all sitting around drinking coffee and having a casual breakfast one morning, when I saw my friend approaching a toaster with a fork in her hand. Oh my god. I could see it all unfolding, her intentions were clear: she was going to use that fork to retrieve the bagel from the toaster oven, and in the process she was going to kill us all. I dove across the room in slow motion, screaming "nooooo" and nearly tackled my friend. I was too late. She had already stuck the fork in the bagel, which was in the toaster, and pulled the bagel out. And you know what? Not one of us was dead. She and her father both looked at me like I was insane, and I sort of brushed it off. I knew I had to wait until later to sit alone and re-examine all of the lessons I'd learned from early childhood to adulthood.
Just a couple of days after you died, the house on Thompson Street played a terrible trick on us. I was sitting and reading (or maybe binge watching TV) in the breakfast room, and Mom was headed to bed. She came back a couple minutes later and beckoned me into the dining room. "Something weird happened," she said, "when I went to turn the lights off and now they are stuck on." She tried to turn the lights in the chandelier in the dining room off, and when she'd done so she had heard a loud pop and then the switch had ceased working. The chandelier bulbs were stuck on. The second switch in the hallway had no effect on them either. Hmmm, I thought. We didn't want to leave those lights going all night, and I was a little bit scared that there was going to be an electrical fire. I really, really wanted you to be there to deal with it. You would have known instantly what was wrong and how to fix it.
Brilliantly, I came up with the idea of unscrewing each individual lightbulb from in the chandelier to get them to turn off for the night, and we could deal with the broken switch in the morning. Covering my hand with my sweatshirt, I unscrewed the bulbs one by one. As I did so, I wondered if I was making some serious mistake that was going to cause the house to blow up. Again I really, really wished I could ask you. Would you say what I was doing was wildly insane and stupid? Or would you say that it was the right thing to do until we could get an electrician in? I had absolutely no idea, but I pretended to Mom that I was completely confident in my plan and that all was well.
As soon as Mom went to bed, I ran upstairs and woke up Marc. He grumbled from the other side of the door, what?! "Ummm," I said, "I may or may not have just set the house to blow up over night. Can you please come take a look?" Marc came downstairs and examined things and said that I had done the right thing and all was well and that the house was not going to explode overnight. However, from his slight hesitancy I could tell that what he was really thinking was that he wished he could ask you and that he should pretend for my sake that he knew what he was talking about, as I had pretended for Mom's sake.
If the seriousness of going near a toaster with a fork was what you made it out to be, I can't imagine how you would have reacted had you seen me with my sweatshirt sleeve pulled over my hand unscrewing the hot bulbs on the broken chandelier. It felt like I was breaking all the rules.
Your other obsession was spare tires. This past summer, I got a flat tire driving home from Jennifer's wedding on Long Island. I got it fixed that night, and then forgot to get a back-up spare tire. You told me that I needed to get one immediately. I said yes, sure, I will soon. You cannot drive without one, you said. Yep, I continued to placate you. Then you launched an email, text, and voicemail campaign that would have any outsider thinking you worked for the spare tire lobby. Relentless. I finally got the back up and about a week later got another flat tire on the way out of town one weekend. Triple A came to fix it, but it was too late to find a tire shop to get a back up that night. I would have to delay my trip until morning, unless I drove to Pennsylvania with no spare. The Triple A guy told me I could chance it, and I looked at him like he had suggested I stick a fork in a toaster while lying in a bathtub: "Um, no, my father would kill me if I drove without a spare." I did wait until morning, and I do have a spare tire, and I do not put utensils in toasters, and amazingly I did not start an electrical fire with the chandelier in the dining room. And I miss you.
Love a
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