Watch out for mulish machinery

I realize that the effectiveness of any mechanical or electrical tool is largely a function of the operator—that any machine is only a good as the “nut behind the wheel,” but I have come across some dangerous appliances in my life.

Not to worry too much. I don’t touch the really menacing ones like chainsaws or lawnmowers so I haven’t yet been hospitalized by anything from the machine shop; but my calling in life requires me to occasionally use washers, dryers, toasters, and irons, all of which can be spiteful.

And just so you don’t think that I am mechanically disabled and that to keep me safe members of my family have to operate all of the equipment for me, I am going to share a story on one of them as well as one on myself.

Everybody in my family cooks—not necessarily well, but they all get into the act. My teenaged daughter once literally got tangled up with the mixer. (No, this is not a story about mechanically braiding hair.) I believe it began with a rubber scraper in the left hand and a mixer in the right hand, and one too many samplings of the chocolate cake batter while mixing.

When the scraper got a little too close to the beaters, they jumped out and sucked the scraper right into the whirlpool, and the hand in charge got spun right in with it. From the other side of the room, there was little I could do to help. Actually, I was quite mesmerized by the whole chain of events and just stood staring.

I watched as she got the mixer stopped and her hand out of the maelstrom. I don’t usually express any other sentiment than fear, anxiety, or “losing it” when my kids have an accident, but this time I have to admit that my reaction was skewed, but not as much as her hand. When she held it up, there were fingers pointing in every direction and an unnatural backward declination in the middle of it all.

I am sorry to say that I burst out laughing and didn’t stop for quite some time, a blunder for which I have never been forgiven. I should have stuck with losing it. Happily the awry digits all eventually resumed their former positions, except for the index finger which has been pointed at me ever since.

As you can see, when they want to be, mechanical devices are diabolical. The following story is something of a family secret, and I have recounted it only once or twice. I think the seven-year statute of limitation has long since run out, so I can tell it without fear of being hauled off to jail. Only the passage of much time and some distance allow me to tell it now.

You mothers know what kind of schemes you resort to in order to get some work accomplished when you have a baby in tow and his preferred method being towed is on your hip. Entertaining baby becomes a rather desperate occupation sometimes.
Well, this particular baby was spellbound by the water swishing around in the washing machine. (Sort of like television except with the water element added.) So while I filled it, I let him sit on the adjacent mechanical device, the dryer. Mind you, I didn’t walk into the next room, nor was I distracted by the phone or anything else. My two feet were right in front of the dryer the whole time.

I bent down to pick up the next piece of laundry, and when I stood up, baby had vanished! I think it was like that scene in Lord of the Rings when Frodo stares into the water and keeps leaning toward it until he tips into the pool with the grateful dead or whatever they were called.

Well, you guessed it. What I saw of my baby was his two feet periscoped above the wash water, and they were agitating back and forth just like the towels were. At least there were two of something to grab which I quickly did and heaved. A spluttering, drenched, baby was hauled safely away from the depths of the beguiling and voracious washing machine. Luckily, Baby only sustained a few knots on the head and one tiny cut, but on a permanent basis he seems to be none the worse for wash-and-wear.

Nevertheless, this diatribe comes with the following warning:
Given its perversity, never operate mechanical equipment while under the influence of chocolate or while in any quantitative state of mental distraction or loss of mind.