Various small malfunctions are ganging up on us right now. As my wife exclaimed the other day, “Why is everything breaking?”
I will start with the ceiling fan, which is only a couple of years old. It has stopped. It could be the bearings (manufacturer says, unlikely), a failed capacitor (more likely), bad wiring (we have the finest electrician), a stuck reversing switch, or dust. If it spins at all, we hear it grind.
The problem is that the fan is out of reach. It required scaffolding to install. So, the manual’s help section is of no immediate use. It is like having a kite caught in a tree. The bother of it is that the warm air from our wood stoves and boiler can loiter at the top, avoiding any real work. It feels intentional given the recent subzero temperatures. It feels like the propensity of French transit workers to strike in the busy season. Perhaps we have a French fan.
Next, the Keurig coffee machine, which had just undergone a descaling operation with proper descaling solution. Every precaution was taken. It died on the table. We hastened to the Keurig website for countermeasures, only to discover other users reporting the same thing — end of life following a descaling operation. For weeks, the blinking “DESCALE” button had been flashing, alerting us to the issue. I guess we got there too late. We took it to the dump, where they cut off the cord, and pitched it in the bin.
The small knob in our Subaru that controls the side view mirrors has been mysteriously pushed into the dashboard panel. We take turns driving that car, of course, which involves adjusting the mirrors regularly, and it was a surprise when I went to do so last week and discovered the knob shoved into the panel. I tried to pinch the end to draw it out. I put my hand under the dash, behind the knob, to push from behind. No luck.
How did this happen? It is not possible to slam into the knob with a knee, entering or exiting. We would have noticed, anyway. What about a blow from a package? Unlikely. Even slinging a package in or out from the passenger seat would require arcing it past the wheel. Maybe the dog did it, which is the default explanation for any damage around the house. But the dog does not enter or exit through the driver’s door. Left alone in the car, he is buckled in the back.
I replaced the thermostat in the den yesterday. It had stopped responding to temperature readings, allowing the boiler to run wild.
The switch on our table-top, decorative ceramic Christmas tree fell apart putting it away for the season.
I reached for one of my go-to coffee mugs last week and the handle came off.
The check engine light came on in the truck, which turned out to have a bad thermostat of its own.
I think the deep freeze we have been experiencing is making everything irritable — plastics and ceramics more brittle, thermostats and ceiling fans overly burdened, other machinery lethargic and ill-tempered. Now that it is February, we are supposed to be turning the corner to spring. Daylight is increasing, new life is issuing in burrows and dens, the chickadees and nuthatches are starting to sing. But we are still in the icy grip of winter, and around our house, it seems, reliable partners have been calling it quits. Any night now (they always wait until the middle of the night), I expect the smoke detectors to start issuing low-battery alarms in common cause with the other householders.
With that in mind, we are going around offering everything more encouragement, proactively replacing batteries, dusting and cleaning, polishing, lubricating, testing, showing we care. Both vehicles could use a car wash and a vacuum. A new coffee machine has arrived, which has been a positive distraction involving a good deal of meet and greet. We brought in a blue electric kettle, matching the decor. The additional splash of color has also helped boost spirits.
New beginnings are a reminder that spring is somewhere around the corner.
Jarvis Coffin writes fiction and essays on rural life. He is a retired media and advertising sales executive and former chef/owner, with his wife, of New Hampshire’s oldest inn, the Hancock Inn. Reach him at huntspond@icloud.com, and keep up with all his musings at jarviscoffin.com.