The Perversity of Inanimate Objects

THE PERVERSITY OF INANIMATE OBJECTS

My boyfriend (yes, I have one of those at this advanced stage of life) thought that his father may have made up this expression. Maybe so, but it’s all over the internet these days, interestingly, with no attribution.

Sounds like something Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde would have said. But no, it’s just something people say, and, according to AI, (forgive me if that offends anyone) it means that “inanimate objects often behave unpredictably, defying user expectations.”

No shit, Sherlock.

“They also can malfunction at the most inconvenient times, leading to frustration.”

Frustration you say? How about anger? How about rage? How about your dishwasher dying just as you are about to entertain your entire family unit on Christmas Eve? (I was actually able to get Mr. Appliance, at some outrageous rate, to come and fix it, but still.)

There are even movies about killer inanimate objects, including The Car, The Lift and Christine.

But that’s fiction. In real life, it’s maddening when an inanimate object doesn’t work the way it should. It’s bad enough that people often disappoint you, but your toaster should not.

You may love your refrigerator, but it does not love you back.

Sometimes, it’s your own damn fault. Your car conks out because you didn’t listen to that rattle and take it to a mechanic.

But sometimes, it’s not. The damn thing just won’t work, and going back to my new friend Mr/Miss/Ms AI (I wonder what its pronouns are) we are told that “this phenomenon highlights the limitations of human control over material things.”

Then AI asks, as it is wont to do, Is this helpful?”

Hell no. In fact, it sounds pretty hopeless.

Maybe if you were really nice to them . . . Nah. Wouldn’t work.

One of the perversities that plague me every day is the difficulty of opening many supposedly benign inanimate objects. Everything from jars to packages seems to be designed to give you trouble. So maybe that‘s a human, not an inanimate failing. Who knows. But when you have to use pliers to open a bottle of Prosecco, I don’t care who the culprit is: I curse the bottle and the horse it rode in on. In Italian.

On the (sort of) bright side, there is an actual term for all this, Resistentialism, which Wikipedia explains is “a jocular theory to describe the seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects, where they cause problems (like lost keys, a malfunctioning printer or a runaway bouncing ball). I haven’t played tennis in a while, so I don’t know about the ball, but I do know that my printer seems to malfunction only when I need it most.

Resistentialism was coined by the humorist Paul Jennings in 1948—and that was before computers. And phones! Even back then, according to Jennings, inanimate objects were against us. “Things always win,“ he says, “and man can only be free from them by not doing anything at all.” This is  supposedly a spoof of existentialism, in case anyone who isn’t trying to open a can of tuna fish gives a flying fig. Droll, I suppose, for some. For me, it simply adds to my angst. BTW: This theory also relates to “Murphy’s Law, something we all know all too well.

I believe in all of the above, but I’d like to expand the theory even more.

I think that places (which are also things) like houses and apartments, know stuff about what we’re planning, and do everything they can to thwart us. When I was about to sell my little house in the country, the oil burner died and the heater for the pool turned cold. There was also a plague of ants (I’m not kidding) and some of the trees developed diseases.

And I almost forgot! Tents! They know I hate camping, so every time I got talked into going, guess what? It poured and flooded the sleeping bags. Or the ground was so hard it nearly broke our backs. Or we heard sounds that could have been wolves in the night. More likely train whistles but I wasn’t convinced, and gave the tent the evil eye. As I was leaving for the last time.

In a futile effort to avoid catastrophe, I frequently tell my apartment how much I appreciate it: the great light, the plenitude of closets (although stuffed to the gills) and the nice location of the building. But, like dealing with a jealous lover, one can never be sure that enough is enough.

Recently, a visitor asked me if I ever thought of moving, and, while I quickly answered in the negative, I’m sure “It” was listening, and I fully expect my beloved refrigerator to go out, or the doorbell to malfunction, or the shelf in the bathroom to fall off.  Please, that slim sliver of the Universe that controls my apartment and everything in it, let it not be my phone! Or anything that requires a visit from Mr. Appliance.

But we’re dealing with things here, folks, so there’s no telling if my pleas to higher powers will be heard, let alone answered.  However, I can offer one piece of advice: when dealing with inanimate objects, listen to the wise words of Dante, who was referring to a different, but strangely related kind of Hell:

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.

(That is, anywhere.)

And don’t even think about moving!