Fallout

Or perhaps shell-shocked is a better word for my condition today. I went around in a daze, battered and numb to most everything around me. I know I was gruff, impatient, and more than a little curt with everyone around me.

Not that I was truly conscious of it. Everything moved like I was in a dream, or rather some surreal nightmare.

My roommate had perhaps his only other friend, and his wife over for Christmas. I think I tried to be cheerful for the company, but it was probably best that I made myself scarce as soon as I could. It was a real bachelor style affair, everything he had slated for his Christmas dinner with friends came prepacked, prepared, just nuke and serve.

As someone that likes to cook, and thinks he's not entirely horrible at it, it offended me. He never likes my cooking anyway, oh, he says he doesn't mind it. Sure, and he'll thank me if I cook. But if I don't set it out in front of him, and make him eat it? He'd rather go in for some little frozen TV dinner from the bargain bins rather than eat something I prepared out of fresh ingredients.

Just another example of a skill I had once thought I was good at, but must be truly terrible indeed.

So I went back to sleep, grumbling. I saw my sister standing over me, and I had but one gift, a little MP3/video/media player from Samsung. I swear it feels cheap as hell. Probably will break the first time anything heavier than a feather touches it.

Disposable technology, they presume no one will own anything for more than a year or two anymore. It's another one of those things that gets to me.

I bet they won't even repair it. It's a far cry from things like my old Gameboy or Super Nintendo, which worked perfectly without any maintenance at all for over a decade and was still going strong. Now I got things like Playstations that break down 5 months after I get them due to parts defects. Parts defects that the company won't fix or replace.

Is it so much to ask that when I buy something, especially something relatively expensive, that it lasts for more than a few years? Out of all the more modern electronics, the longest I've gotten anything to last without needing repairs, and damn I don't think I'm that tough on things, I just use them normally, is now my Gameboy Advance. Everythign else I have is either over a decade old and still works perfectly, or decidedly younger and needs constant babying and repairs. Such as the very PC I'm typing this from, a Dell my roommate got second hand, only a year old now, and its needed to be "rebuilt" 4 times. Only one of those was from any sort of malicious virus.

See how I tend to go off track like that? Just something gets a hold of me and I gotta get it out.

When I finally come back out my roommate is bugging me to try out this little MP3 device. I know I must have still been out of sorts. I was grumbling and quite annoyed as he ripped into it. It just struck me as, "This was my gift, right? How about you let me use it as I want rather than taking it away from me to play with yourself?" In the end if that's how he's gonna behave I'd rather he bought me nothing at all and just got one for himself.

The food was terrible. I knew it would be. Sure, it was "quality" frozen, prepared, packaged food he bought from some supposedly good brands. But I eat stuff I cook myself every day, I eat stuff I prepare from fresh meats, vegetables, and other ingredients. Compared to that, his nuke food just tasted like bland nutrient pastes.

That Marie Calendar pie was even worse. I used to say it's impossible to have a truly bad pie. Even cheap pies are still good to eat. It's just about one of the simplest things to possibly do. I could make damn fine pies by the time I was 4 and I've never seen anyone screw up a pie recipe beyond salvage.

That frozen Pumpkin Pie thing though would have to be a contender to break that "truly bad pie" line. It's not like it made me sick, but it has to be the absolutely worst pumpkin pie that I've ever had the displeasure of knowing.

Finally I was fed up, and went back to my sanctuary. Cleaning my room and reorganizing all my possessions, two acts I usually loathe, seemed preferable to continued Christmas. Just another day I spent angry at everything, feeling like my body was on autopilot as most things around me seemed to conspire to try to tick me off.

You may think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But that's the way it was.

Thank the gods its all over.



Til next time,

Grind Away