Machine's Attack

I remember back in the sixties some feller wrote a story about machines coming alive. Not only did they come alive but they started attacking people too. The machines were wreaking revenge on everybody for all the abuse they suffered at the hands of mankind. CityplaceHollywood even made a movie about it. Most people just sort of laughed and said that writer feller sure had a real good imagination. Some people thought it was just plain silly but still others called it science fiction.

Well, let me tell you what it was, it was prophesy or something like that. I know of several instances where machines did indeed attack someone. At first the attacks were small and subtle like. Shucks they didn't even attract much attention to start with.

The first attack came when my wife sat down in front of her computer to write another one of those children's stories. She is not a science fiction fan so she hadn't read the book or seen the movie about the machines attacking people. She had no earthly idea of the peril she was in on that fateful day. She had written a couple of pages when she decided to review the story thus far. Her hand moved deftly over the mouse and she started to scroll back up to the top of the first page. That's when the mouse bit her scrolling finger and caused a small but painful lump to come up on the end of her index finger.

The second attack came when my sister-in-law tried to use a can opener. All that was on her mind was feeding her cat. She never once thought of her can opener as being dangerous. But that's how it happens; they get you when you least expect it. Anyway she placed the can opener on the rim of the cat food can and gave it a good squeeze. That doggoned thing pinched her thumb and raised a large painful blood blister, yeah.

The third attack was when my TV and VCR decided to show their anger. There were two shows on TV at the same time that I wanted to see. So I figured to watch one and record the other so I could watch it later. I put a blank tape in the VCR and set the timer. Then I settled back in my easy chair to watch and record. All at once the VCR spit the tape out with tremendous force. It sailed across the room and hit me on the shin. I angrily picked up the tape and stomped across the room and slammed the tape back into the VCR when the TV pitched a bolt of lightening from the screen right smack dab into my hand. I've been listening to the radio ever since.

The forth attack happened when my wife's friend tried to use a rotisserie that one of her young'uns got her for Christmas. She put a ham in the rotisserie but it refused to cook it. Then as she worked, trying to remove the ham, one of the rotisserie forks stabbed her in the hand, leaving a large and very painful, ugly hole. When she jerked her hand back, the thing threw the ham at her and whacked her on the head raising a large pump knot. Finally she put the ham in the range oven to bake and figured to do something with the rotisserie later. If that young'un of hers had any idea that thing would have hurt her Momma, she probably would have bought her an already cooked ham instead.

Now my wife is about to fix us some supper. All she is going to do is put a couple of frozen dinners in the microwave oven. I thought about what all had happened to our kin and friend and told her maybe we better just eat them like we would a Popsicle. She laughed and said “don't worry, I've done got this thing all figured out. Then even if the microwave blows up, it will just make a mess, won't hurt nobody.” She said, “I'm gonna put the dinners in the oven and set the timer, then stand around the corner and push the start button with the broom handle.”