Have you ever felt the need to apologize to an appliance?

I mean, I certainly do have an vibrant, emotional relationship with many of my appliances.  (This, in no way, should be taken as supporting evidence for the theory that I am, in fact, more than slightly nuts.  You know you talk to your appliances, too, so deal with it.)  But this is the first time I’ve felt something other than anger, or disappointment.

For example, take my toaster.  Please.  Then drop it off a high building.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why it jams, and makes that horrible "jammed toaster" noise every time I use it.  Every time.  A single slice of bread?  Jammed.  A bagel?  Forget about it.  Jam city.  Someday, I’m sure I’ll replace it.  But it’s not really high on the priority list.

And you can’t deny that you have an emotional relationship with your computer.  Cajoling, cursing, praising, petting ... I’d venture computers are right up there with some pets, or perhaps, lesser loved children, in our emotional attachment.  (These are jokes, folks ...)

So, like a moron, I accidentally left the refrigerator door open the other day as I hurried off to work.  I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the Southern California weather report, but it’s been hot here.  Very hot.  And my poor refrigerator just wasn’t up to the task of cooling my entire apartment to 45 degrees.  (I’m guessing that’s about the temperature inside a refrigerator.  Maybe it’s closer to 40, or 50.  I really don’t know.  I just have a "cooler" and "coolest" label for a little spin dial kind of thing.)

When I arrived home, there was butter all over the floor.  And all over the inside of my refrigerator.

Being a man of science, I immediately saw the potential for investigation here.  Oh, sure, I would have to toss out the numerous fruits and vegetables (cough, cough) that I normally stock in my refrigerator.  The milk, the cheese, the cream ... all gone.  But in what molecular state would margarine be easiest to clean up?  Liquid or solid?

I decided to partially clean the refrigerator while it was still room temperature, and clean the rest after it had a chance to get back up to speed.

The "room temperature" margarine was a bit tough to clean up.  Very gooey, very sticky, and very not fun.  So far, recovery efforts on the re-congealed margarine are going much smoother.  So now you know.

Thing have started to cool down a bit here, with temperatures dropping out of the 100’s, and back in to the high 80’s.  Ah, sweet relief.

So, once again, a big "I’m sorry" to my refrigerator.  I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.

It has been pointed out to me that one of my most controversial columns contains (gasp!) a factual error!  Way back in I Hate Elmo, I referred to Big Bird as a grown up, like Bert and Ernie.  As any loyal Sesame Streeter knows, Big Bird is approximately six years old.  Thanks to PggyMppt@aol.com for pointing this out.

My point remains unchanged, though.  Elmo does more harm than good, by giving kids a "low" target to shoot for, in terms of language use and social behavior, as opposed to Kermit, Bert, Ernie, the Count, and others who made me want to learn and grow.