The mystery problem

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Yevver have one of those problems that ONLY happens when you are around? You take it to a person who can supposedly fix the problem and IT NEVER HAPPENS.

You leave and as soon as you are sufficiently far away that the repair person is not easily available, IT HAPPENS AGAIN.

What?

The Death of Rats from Terry Pratchett's work.

Mechanical karma at work? Gremlins in the system? To borrow a term from the Algonquins a torqued off manitou at work? To sling a monster word at you - anthropomorphic personification?

The monster word simply means giving human attributes to something that ain't human. In other words you start swearing at your microwave and a part of you believes the microwave understands.

For the record, I do not believe your microwave understands a single thing you say. Nor does mine. Bloody things can't understand English, being made in China, Japan or one of those foreign countries which doesn't have the courtesy to speak a normal language.

But anthropomorphic personification (being a word when spoken very rapidly and repeatedly can stun the less intelligent among us) implies that the thing so personified really cannot have human attributes. We're making stuff up when we do it.

In other words people who use words like anthropomorphic personification in everyday language are being condescending to the rest of us who have to deal with microwaves which work FINE when in the repair shop but sit smugly (there I go anthropomorphic personifying again) on the counter and turn a bag of popcorn into charcoal in 30 seconds or run for 5 minutes and the mound of hamburger which was supposed to defrost is now even colder.

These condescending people "know" when you swear at your microwave, it is only a machine, inert, dead and cannot comprehend any language, has no emotions, no thoughts, no desires and all the other annoying non-physical stuff that makes up a human being.

In yet OTHER words, the condescending people are privately laughing at us when our microwave works at the shop but not at home.

These people also lie a lot in public.

I'll bet you when their door is closed and no one is around, they carry on conversations with all kinds of household appliances, their car, house and everything else.

Not that I have any problems with the microwave. Not at all. None whatsoever. The microwave works just fine. Great popcorn. Defrosts ground bison for burgers perfectly. (and here's hoping if my microwave has internet access, it'll never find this blog).

But I'm off topic (surprise surprise).

You have those problems which happen when NO ONE is around. If you don't then I and the rest of the world now officially hate you.
 
I'm presently having one.

I have the offending device in the repair shop WHERE IT IS BEHAVING PERFECTLY NORMALLY!

Really. The repair guru has YET to be able to make the thing act like it does for me. When I spoke to him, he was not quite willing to say I'm either a liar, insane, delusional, a Reboobican or Damnocrat, but I could hear the tone of his voice. He was thinking it.

(sigh)

I think it just doesn't like me.

Call it Anthropomorphic personification if you will (and so stun several people standing too close to you), but I can't come up with a better reason.