We headed home with no great slapstick moment to send us on our way. Although when we stopped at the services for some lunch we locked the car, but when we got back the key clicker didn't work. I used it in its traditional key fashion in the door, which set off the car alarm. Usually I'd be able to stop that with the key clicker, but it was suddenly dead. Luckily the alarm stopped by itself (though then went off again when I tried to get in the car. The driver's side door would not open with the key (which made me wonder if we'd been broken into) so my fiancee had to scoot across to get to behind the wheel, but putting the key in the ignition stopped the alarm.
Weirdly at the same time, the sat nav which had been working fine had lost signal and also the radio had turned on the feature where it tunes you into local radio stations by itself and was on a different station than we'd been listening to. Had someone broken in merely to change the radio and disable my sat nav. It felt a bit like the car had been hit by the shockwaves of a nuclear explosion or been zapped by aliens. Why were all the gadgets malfunctioning? Were the robots about to turn against their human masters?
But the other car key that my girlfriend had in her handbag did have the power to open the doors, so I suspect that the battery had just gone in the first one. I don't know what had happened to the sat nav which had not even been plugged in. Or the radio, though thinking about it the alarm had briefly gone off the night before. So maybe the machines were thinking about rising, but then backed off to wait for another time.
Perhaps foolishly, after getting home, I decided to record this week's snooker podcast, before then having to dash out to meet the men who are designing our new bathroom. My dedication to this project at what is possibly the most stressful and busiest period of my entire life is a bit questionable, but perhaps by losing myself and my mind in the basement it means I am better set to go back into the real world where I have to organise packing, moving, weddings and touring. It was going to be difficult to create anything as extraordinary as frame 9, but
you can hear the 45 minutes of madness here or
on iTunes. Me1's fiancee says it sounds like a five year old putting on a play by himself, thinking he's acting brilliantly, but delivering in an artificial and monotone way. But who cares what she thinks about anything? She'll never stop Me2 doing whatever he likes.... oh dear.
Then we went out to choose toilets and baths- something I realise I have never had to do in my life (apart from the cheapest possible toilet I bought to replace the broken one in my first owned flat). This also means that the toilet and bath that I have been using for nine years will soon be consigned to the skip of history (actually just a skip). I have one more week of use of them before I move out. When I return they will be replaced. I will miss those old friends. We've had some fun together - though not quite sure how much fun the toilet had, though it did get an excellent view of my bum and (depending on its sexual preferences) the bums of some of the friends I've had to stay overnight.
We toss away these important objects in our life when we're done with them. Don't blame the machines for wanting to do away with us.
