On Comforts and Laundry or How Are We Better Off Now?

On the night of the lunar eclipse I held a brief conversation with The Great Grand Mermaid and Grumpy where we discussed how much time things take now days. I asked specifically how they had managed with four children when I have about all I can take with two. Sometimes two mermaids feel like four but I know in my knower that they pale in comparison to the stress exhibited in families everywhere. The feeling I got from The Great Grand Mermaid was that there was much to do on the farm, and they were kept plenty busy but that somehow, still, there wasn’t the intensity, and somehow the life was more sane despite the lack of creature comforts. I suggested that it was perhaps the creature comforts (expressly the technological ‘advancements’) that contribute or even cause the undeniable chaos of our generation.
Today I stayed home from work mistakenly assuming I would be able to get SOME work done (intermittently and during naps) while Mommy Mermaid fought off that which ails her. [Have I mentioned yet how particularly bad this season has been for ailments? Sheesh.] By the way, when I say ‘work’ I do mean the effort that keeps The Mermaids in all of the latest fins and seashells.

Hoy, was I wrong.

I did manage to complete the errands and outdoor tasks that elude a regular work-a-day schedule while The Mermaids were otherwise engaged with dirt and playing ‘human’; how quaint.
Needless to say my typical day as a knowledge worker does little to prepare me for the frustrations of a mermaids demands. I bow down to stay-at-home moms/dads everywhere.
After tucking in The Mermaids I was content to sit down to my ‘work’ machine and pound out a few knowtes¹. I was thirty full minutes into a good knowte when an unusual and persistent sound made it’s way to the fore of my mind. I investigated, promptly slipped on an inch of water on the floor of my laundry room (9+ gallons as I would come to find out) and struggled to stem the hissing, seething flow from behind the washing machine.
I was both very wet and successful.

You may interested to know, as I do now, that burst washing machine hoses are among the top (if not #1) causes of water damage (and insurance claims) in the home. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2002_Sept_17/ai_91669484) In fact, I find the washing machine unit to be rather unique with all three primary units of plumbing (hot / cold / drain) plus electricity not to mention the extreme of the spinning drum. This all points to what one should consider to be the most likely focus of failure in an abstract system, i.e., the most complicated one.

This all brings me full circle, back to the conversation with The Great Grand Mermaid and Grumpy. Their lives were hard, perhaps especially on farms, but uncomplicated. They may have even pined for a hot shower or indoor toilet but all that lacking added up to an uncomplicated simplicity that most importantly lacked the incessant crowing of our everyday. Did they have computers? TVs? Forced Air heat? Natural gas pipes? Hot Tubs? Water Heaters? Showerheads? Toilets? Homeowners covenants? SPAM? Sound Bytes? Cell Phones? Cable? iPods? Satellites (both orbiting and re-entering)? Space Programs? MERMAIDS!? Blogging software (which by the way is not secure anymore and 2+ versions out of date…I need one more thing to do)?

No, they had outhouses and farms and really bad snowstorms. Were they (or are they) sane? Yes, for the most part.

Were they always warm and comfortable? Perhaps; perhaps not. The ubiquity of these creature comforts was certainly not there but what is the cost of the struggle to keep these systems running? Just tonight, my washing machine (and my relating it here) cost me four hours of knowtes, two steel mesh hoses, two or more hours of sleep, and a pound of cinnamon bears. That doesn’t count the debatable mental cost, the potential for more (or less?) drywall, and replacing the valves now corroded OPEN that feed my new burst-resistant hoses.which I would have done tonight while I was ‘under the hood’ except ‘they’ don’t sell any valves at Freddies.²

Now I am not ‘on the brink’ or anything, I actually got a perverse sort of pleasure out of the struggle with the stubborn gate valve and abnormally wet laundry room when contrasted with four forgettable hours of knowtes. Not unlike the pleasure I imagine a 1920’s man may have had from finishing that cord of wood after 16 hours in the field. This is what, I think, makes the mental cost of tonights struggle debatable. But in this time of higher taxes, double incomes, the Joneses, and The Mermaids the necessity of knowtes is undeniable and that alone is mentally taxing.
So, carry on: Replace your washing machine hoses every three years, get your yearly physical, shred your documents monthly, Armor-All your dashboard weekly, drink eight glasses of water daily(or is it six…four?), sit in two hours of traffic every day, check your email every five minutes, and make sure your computer is backed up all the time.

Me? I am going to bake my drywall with a space-heater so I don’t grow allergens in the wall and then I am going to hit the hypo-allergenic hay. Ahh, the simple life.

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¹A knowte would be an indeterminable unit of work, recompensed (usually with a salary), and performed by a knowledge worker.
Antonyms: blief

² Freddies is the only facility with a passable plumbing section open between 21:00 and 23:00. Open that late, no doubt, to feed the frenzied, fast-food, creature comfort, demographic; or is it feature-comfort? Eh, that is another post.