PBS showed an update a couple weeks ago of the Voyager mission. I was surprisingly moved by the journeys of the intrepid spacecraft, chugging along toward deep space with their primitive computer brains. Any number of times, they could have been lost, but they both successfully matriculated—they have crossed the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space. Off they go, like kids to college. We will never see them again, obviously, and they are having a harder and harder time phoning home. Eventually the signals will be too faint to hear.
Both Voyager spacecraft carry copies of a twelve-inch disc known as the Golden Record, crammed with as much data as NASA engineers could fit on a round gold-plated piece of copper. The Golden Record contains images and music, math and science—humankind's achievements (as of 1977, that is).The Golden Records are a message to the universe that we existed, we were here. The discs should last at least a billion years, long after the human species has destroyed its habitat and gone extinct. I get a little weepy when I imagine some far away alien child finding a gold record buried in its backyard, figuring out how to play the disc, and discovering Chuck Berry, many light years from Earth. Oh, Carol, don't let him steal your heart away!
I'm back in the present. Today rain and sun have battled for supremacy. That is how we know it is almost spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Despite the 45°F temperature, I tore down some of the plastic sheeting that protected us from the worst of the east wind. I opened multiple windows.
When I can't figure out what to do next, I embark on a cleaning binge. I started with the bathroom, on the assumption that my effort will be most obvious in the smallest room. It's good I did. Under the cat's cozy fleece window seat in the bathroom were layers of moldy wet towels. Gross. No wonder my sinuses are constantly clogged.
After throwing all the moldy towels in the washer ($2.00 to wash, $2.00 to dry), I tackled the bedroom rug with my old Tidy Maid, something I do a few times a year. However, I soon noticed I wasn't having much success—the machine was not hoovering! Argh. I diagnosed the problem with a flashlight: The vacuum cleaner was gagging on a gargantuan hairball stuck in its craw, I mean, its hose, halfway between the entry and exit.
Oh, yippee, a rare chance to use my human ingenuity to solve a domestic problem! Rare because I so rarely do anything domestic besides cooking and eating food. Time to exercise the calcifying brain cells. I got busy strategizing my approach. Yes, in case you are wondering, I remembered to unplug the vacuum cleaner before I started poking around with metal tools.
First, I tried the cat's wooden-dowel play stick (good for making mysterious under-the-rug creatures that are super fun to pounce on . . . so it seems, I mean, not that I would know). The stick was too short. Next, I tried an untwisted and unbent hanger, repurposed to catch and pull out the hair clog. No luck. Both the stick and the hanger were too weak and too short. Hmmm. I know that feeling. I debated doing a Cesarean on the plastic hose, but wasn't sure I could duct-tape the thing back up successfully. Thinking, thinking . . . a-ha! The broom! The broom handle turned out to be the right length, weight, and thickness to shove that clog down the tube and into the belly of the machine. Because I had removed the dust bag, leaving only the gaping exit hole, I witnessed the birth. I even helped, although sadly, the clog came apart in chunks. Eeeww. I thought maybe I had sucked up a cat toy. Nope. The clog was just a solid mass of cat hair, dust, and detritus. After the hairball was ejected, the vacuum cleaner sucked like a dream. Back to work.
While I vacuumed (multitasking!), I washed a load of bed linens and miscellaneous t-shirts and socks (another $4.00). Only items made from synthetics ever truly get dry in this dryer. I often must festoon my apartment with slightly damp clothing and towels. Today when I pulled the mass of laundry from the dryer, I could tell right away that it was nowhere near dry. What gives? I discovered that every single item—fitted sheet, pillowcases, socks, towels, underwear, t-shirts—had all somehow magically been sucked inside the duvet cover. Not a single thing remained. Everything was neatly bundled in a sodden heap inside the giant pillowcase. I couldn't have done it better myself.
Doing laundry opens a window into parallel universe, whose inhabitants apparently sometimes need just one beige sock. I wish they would at least ask. I don't mind loaning a sock once in awhile. But they just take it. Sometimes they return it, sometimes they don't. Today they didn't appear to take anything . . . they just wanted to have some fun, I guess. Ha ha. Now the Love Shack looks like a cheap clothing store after a hurricane.
All these daily challenges that sometimes seem so overwhelming (I want my darn sock back!) pale in comparison to the challenge humans are currently facing. I can't do much to save the world. I can't call out to outerspace . . . save us, superior beings, wherever you are! My song is not on that Golden Record. In fifty years, heck, in twenty years, no one will remember me or my tirade about recalcitrant laundry and missing socks. Sometimes I'm sad about that. The stories I write will disappear into the past along with my bones. Maybe in some cosmic scrapbook, all our stories shine forever, who knows.
I'm not twenty anymore. I don't have a lot of time left. Humans have such a short blip of time to make our mark. Not everyone makes it into the history books. I'm okay with anonymity. Just another bozo on the bus.
