{"id":520,"date":"2013-01-03T18:59:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T02:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=520"},"modified":"2013-01-03T19:05:43","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T03:05:43","slug":"talking-to-appliances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/03\/talking-to-appliances\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking to Appliances"},"content":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards<\/em><\/p>\n

I was sitting in the kitchen the other day, eating a ham sandwich and minding my own business, when the dishwasher said to me, \u201cso, how about you kill your wife?\u201d It said it in a kind of gurgling, washy-water kind of voice.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I was going mad.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow why would you think that?\u201d the dishwasher said. \u201cYou\u2019re not going mad. Killing your wife is a good idea. She doesn\u2019t respect you, not really. Doesn\u2019t think much of you, when you think about it. Hardly cares about anything you care about. And always nagging. Always nagging.”<\/p>\n

There ya go, proof. It was all in my head, the dishwasher knowing what I was thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow hold on,\u201d said the dishwasher, \u201cjust hold on a second. Two things, partner. One, just because I know what you\u2019re thinking is not, in fact, proof that I\u2019m just a figment of your imagination. I could just be a good guesser. And two, so what. It\u2019s not like the idea of killing your wife is a bad one, is it. I mean, let\u2019s be serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took a bite of my sandwich. Thick ham, mustard, wheat bread.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wheat bread, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

Example of what.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hate wheat bread. Hate it. You know it, I know it, and more to the point, your wife knows it. But she buys it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I did the shopping.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and we\u2019ll get to that in a bit. But who makes the shopping lists, my man? Who makes the shopping lists?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never gone insane before, so this was new for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, will you drop the insanity thing, please?\u201d the dishwasher said. \u201cFor my sake? Can we stick to the issue at hand? Can you give me one reason, just one reason, why you shouldn\u2019t kill your wife with, I don\u2019t know, they number 7 carving knife being cleaned inside me right now?\u201d<\/p>\n

I certainly didn\u2019t want to got to prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrison, you say? As if where you\u2019re living now isn\u2019t a kind of living prison?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, my home life was nothing like a prison, nothing like it at all. I could go outside whenever I wanted to, and often did, if it wasn\u2019t raining or snowing or there was too much wind or, unlike today, if it wasn\u2019t simple too hot for decent human beings.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven prisoners get to roam around the yard, you know. This outdoor business means nothing if you can\u2019t even leave the property without permission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honestly, my wife wasn\u2019t that bad. She just liked to know where I was at all times. That\u2019s sort of what marriage is all about, and after 30 years of it, it was more comfort than burden.<\/p>\n

\u201cBullcrap,\u201d said the dishwasher. It was on some sort of heavy cycle now, really chugging and churning. \u201cI should apologize for talking to you like that, but no, that\u2019s bullcrap. Comfort, my never-used dry-rinse dispenser. When was the last time you had a beer? When was the last time you simply got up, walked to your car, drove to a bar, and a had a nice, cold Miller High Life. Tell me that. Tell me that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t like beer, gave that up when I was a very young man, made me gassy, gave me headaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen have a shot of whiskey for all I care! Watch the damn baseball game! Maytag knows you never watch the games at home, even. She controls everything. Everything! Kill her! Take a knife, and wait for her by the door, and when she walk through, stab her repeatedly! And when you’re done, you can wash the knife in me, and no one would ever know!<\/p>\n

But what would I do with the body?<\/p>\n

\u201cBody, schmoddy. You over think things.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I killed my wife, I\u2019d go to jail, no two ways about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what they have in jail, though? They have televisions. Prisoners get to watch baseballs games. They get to go outside. There are libraries in prisons, and you can sit in your bunk reading books all day. Try readng a book at home, when your wife is around, and see how fast she\u2019s got a chore or a project or \u2018something that isn\u2019t such a waste of time\u2019 ready for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s rapes in jail.<\/p>\n

The washing machine went suddenly silent. All was quiet except for an idle and random drip drippity drip.<\/p>\n

I took another bite of my sandwich. This one had too much mustard.<\/p>\n

With a loud roar the dishwasher kicked on again, jets spraying a furious rinse cycle. \u201cRapes in jail? Rapes? You think they\u2019re going to do rapes on a fifty-five year old man? A fat old man, broken and bent in half by his wife of thirty years? You think they\u2019re even going to look at you twice? I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen at all. And let\u2019s be really frank here, little man. She rapes you anyway, doesn\u2019t she. Once a month she puts on that ghastly negligee and that awful perfume and turns the lights in the bedroom down low and tries to hide the women\u2019s magazine with the latest tips under the bed. And you go in there and you do your duty, like a man! And you don\u2019t even enjoy it! You feel guilty for conjuring up images to get you through, pictures in your perverted little mind of the girls at the grocery store, the ones who are barely out if highschool, summer jobs for college, long blond hair straight. One of them still had braces! And you try so hard to not think about them, pert and supple, try to think how much you love your wife, when what you\u2019d love most of all, what really would get your rocks off, knock your socks off, is to lay into her with the carving knife and watch the blood not just flow but splash around, give her a really going over, a real work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

I just sat there, tears in my eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then when you\u2019re done, when you\u2019ve sat in the blood for a while, there by the front door, and you start to get a little cold because the heat of the moment\u2019s worn off and the air conditioner is going like blazes, then you stand up, you go take yourself a shower, you put your clothes in the washing machine, you put the knife inside me, and you call the police or take your car to a tavern and have a sloe gin fizz, or, since we\u2019re friends here, I\u2019ll just say it, you go and do whatever the fuck you want for a change.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I loved my wife, I really did. I didn\u2019t want to see her stabbed and bloody all over the foyer rug.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen use a gun. Poison her. I don\u2019t care. I really don\u2019t care. I just want you to get off your ass and finally take control of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could just leave her, if I wanted to. Just leave and never come back.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo you can\u2019t,\u201d said the dishwasher. The rinse cycle was finished, and now it was on some kind of air dry, a constant white-noise hum. \u201cIf you could do that, you would have a long time ago. The only way you\u2019ll be free is if she\u2019s dead. I\u2019m sorry, but that\u2019s the way it\u2019s going to be. So do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at the dishwasher, finally. The day was overcast outside, despite the awful heat, and the kitchen was dark and gloomy. The little LED read-out on the front of the dishwasher shone brightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be done drying off this knife in about 10 minutes. What time does the microwave say.\u201d<\/p>\n

The green lights on the microwave were just as bright as the dishwasher.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo your wife will be home in about an hour. That\u2019s plenty of time to get ready. Lay down some tarp if you want to, go dig a hole in the back yard maybe. Finish your nasty little sandwich, open a bottle of wine, fortify yourself for the task at hand. Listen, my friend. I believe in you. You can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the dishwasher went silent, and the LED readout on the front ticked down a few minutes.<\/p>\n

I sighed, picked up my plate, and walked over to the trashcan, dumped the last bite of ham sandwich with too much mustard, on wheat bread, into the bin. I walked into the laundry room, opened up the washing machine. Poured in some detergent. Took off my shirt, threw it in. Took off my pants, my underpants, my socks. All in. Picked up and emptied the hamper into the machine also. Started it. Waited for it to talk to me. It just gurged, like a normal appliance. I sighed.<\/p>\n

Walked, naked, into the foyer. My wife, my poor wife, spread out and cooling on the foyer rug. Blood everywhere. Not my fault. Not my fault. It was that air conditioner, that stupid loud air conditioner. I\u2019d wanted to get new one for years, but she insisted it was fine, that noise wasn\u2019t so bad. My poor dead wife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards I was sitting in the kitchen the other day, eating a ham sandwich and minding my own business, when the dishwasher said to me, \u201cso, how about you kill your wife?\u201d It said it in a kind of gurgling, washy-water kind of voice. Obviously, I was going mad. \u201cNow why would … <\/p>\n

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