The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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The ladies at Jolene’s Gift and Boutique were eating their bag lunches in a corner of the back storeroom they’d converted into a break room. Microwave, coffee maker, mini-fridge and a small TV hooked up to a crummy antenna they’d mounted on the back of the building and run a coaxial hookup thru a window. Since their usual soap opera wasn’t on for another 5 minutes they were watching CNN’s coverage of Trump’s tax returns.

“You imagine losing 900 million dollars?” Alice said, munching her cucumber sandwich. “How many lifetimes would it take to make that much?” Shelly laughed, put her iced tea down and pretended to do the math. “Oh, too many if you mean ours? Maybe with plenty of reincarnations.”

From behind her cup of coffee Katie volunteered, “My Jim could lose that much at the casino in a year too if he had it when he walked in. Heck, he may have lost nearly that already. I sure don’t see a paycheck these days. Goes to the tribe.”

“White man’s guilt,” Alice observed with a smirk.

“Maybe he can write it off as a loss,” Shelly suggested. “Isn’t that what Donald did, gamble and lose?”

“Or a charitable donation to the Indians,” Alice tossed in. A commercial for the Washington Lottery came on with improbable timing, its snappy slogan appearing at the end: You cannot win if you do not play. Katie groaned. “Jim should have that tattooed on his fat ass.”

“More like you cannot lose if you do not play,” Shelly suggested, taking one final gulp of her cold coffee and considered pouring a fresh cup, then decided her stomach was already upset.

“You suppose he really is rich?” Katie asked aloud.

“Jim, you mean?” Alice asked and laughed.

“The rich don’t pay taxes,” Katie muttered, “so I guess he must be rich.”

“And the best part?” Shelly moaned, “ it’s all perfectly legal.”

“He claims he’s the only one who can change the laws because he knows how to use them so brilliantly. Brilliantly, he said,” Katie added bitterly, switching the channel to the Young and the Resentful.

“We must be dumb as rocks,” Alice pronounced. Katie got ready to go back to her register. “I might vote for him, though.”

“Dumber than rocks,” Alice reiterated.

“He got rich, didn’t he? And we’re working for minimum wage.”

Shelly got up too. “And we pay taxes.”

Alice turned off the TV. “Dumb as rocks.”

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This is the morning after the Storm of the Century. I know, it’s only 16 years old, the century, but 100 year floods come about every ten years now so 16 years, it’s amazing we haven’t had at least two storms of the century so far. Maybe we did and I just don’t remember well anymore.

Many of the neighbors, especially those newly arrived to the monsoonal South End, were wandering around their yards in total shock. If we had had counselors, we would’ve sent them into the debris fields to round up these flummoxed victims, take them to Red Cross evacuation centers or at least to the storeroom of Tyee Store, offer them hot coffee and consoling grief interventions. Some had lost patio umbrellas, garbage can lids, prized bird feeders — the damage was beyond their ability to comprehend. Those of us who had seen storms like this before tried to comfort them, but they were inconsolable. If this could happen once, it could certainly happen again, maybe next week.

No doubt ours wasn’t the only neighborhood trying to make sense of Mother Nature’s fury. Up and down the island, folks were probably wandering the length of their lawns, searching for a prized dahlia or an overturned planter, muttering incoherently, questioning God and their useless religion. Who, really, could blame them? Their world had been turned upside down, shaken and dropped like a ragdoll back to earth but off its foundations. The world, not the doll … pardon these mixed metaphors, but I guess I’m a little shaken too and I’ve been through these catastrophes before.

We’re all picking up the pieces now. It won’t be easy. All those batteries we bought in a panic, all those flashlights that we no longer need, a pantry full of Vienna sausages and tomato soup. It’s as if the Mormons learned their year of supplies stocked in the fallout shelter is useless now, just food going past its expiration date, same as those poor yahoos who stocked up for Y2K, expecting digital Armageddon.

We’ll survive. South End Strong! South End Strong! What doesn’t kill us is, well … well, geez, I don’t know, maybe it just weakens us. Those patio umbrellas, did it make them tough? Those bird feeders, will they be the same? It will take time to recover, I guess. Sure, we can buy another garbage can lid, but how do you restore our faith? How do you learn to sleep at night knowing the wind or the rain or the news crews can come howling at any time? South End Strong! We survived this, maybe we can survive the next storm of the century! Sure got plenty of tomato soup and enough batteries to last until 2200. We should be okay. You readers out there, take inspiration from us. And if you need any D size batteries, let me know, I’ll make you a helluva deal.

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The meteorologists were apoplectic, the newscasters were tearing their hair out, the public was in panic mode, grocery stores ran out of bread, hardware stores sold out batteries and flashlights, the streets of Stanwoodopolis were nearly empty by Friday night. The storm of the decade was on its way, possibly the storm of the century!

Some killer typhoon was headed our way from Asia, crossing the Pacific at unimaginable speeds, headed like a runaway locomotive for the South End and the entire west coast from Northern California to British Columbia. We were warned to hunker down, take cover, stay inside. Hurricane force winds would be pounding the coast, tearing up the bluffs, blowing down houses and trees. Our neighbors came over with updated wills they wanted us to witness and sign. Surely this was the End As They Knew It.

We signed their wills and gave them a tearful goodbye. Our lanterns and oil lamps were at the ready on the table. The mizzus kept her I-pad tuned to the dopplers that showed a dark red blot representing winds advancing on us like Trump supporters. We were doomed and we knew it. I hated myself for not digging the tornado shelter when I had the chance, for not buying the big ass generator to keep us alive in the coming electricless days ahead, for leaving us unprotected against the fury of Nature herself, for living a life of sloth and hedonism. Because now the Piper had come for his payment and we didn’t even have children to offer.

Outside the leaves began to move in a twisted dance as the trees stirred with the first onslaught. The waters on the Sound broke in wave after wave. The lights, did they flicker? Was this it? Was this the beginning of the end? Would we die without knowing who won the 2016 presidential election? After the long depraved descent into the monstrous maelstrom of petty personal politics this past year and a half? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. Not after all the crap we had endured to make it this far. Only to come this close. Let the storm hit Donald, Lord, let the storm hit someone else, anyone else!

The Lord, well, she listened apparently, but in her mercy she spared nearly everyone. The storm of the century gave us gusts of, oh, 25 miles an hour or so, nothing that interrupted the power, nothing that prevented us from watching bad TV on our last night on earth. The weather people warned, by the time we called it bedtime, that the threat was still there. The newsfolks showed a house with a tree on its roof. Every station showed the same house. Proof that the danger was real! They hadn’t made it up. Look! They had a windsurfer who had to be rescued by a fellow windsurfer. And this! A kayak buffeted by wild waves near shore. Who paddled beyond camera range and, we can only assume, to his watery grave.

I write this the next day. The sun is shining on what should have been Desolation Row. A fir bough, torn from its tree, is buried point down next to the garden path. A lawnchair is on its side. Leaves are piled into the porch corner. But we’re alive. We’re alive! Later on I’ll walk up to my neighbors who rewrote their will. They said if a tree landed on their house and killed them in their sleep I could have their old outboard motor in the shed. I sure hate to get a motor that way, but a deal’s a deal.

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So we get home from a four day vacation all tanned and rested and naturally we load the washer right off the bat so we’ll have clean undies and socks next day. Half an hour later I wander into the bathroom where we keep an alcove for our washer/dryer combo … and splish splash, I was takin a bath in a small lake that was rapidly forming.

You know — and I do too — we’re going into Appliance Hell now, a dark journey down into the depths of plumbing, heavy mopping, washer troubleshooting, drywall tear-out, new paneling and maybe, a big maybe, we’ll fix the problem without a huge bill or, worst case, a new machine. You know — but I didn’t — this will more than likely go badly, not easy. The gods of plumbing are cruel and capricious sons-of-bitches, we all know that. Or will soon.

I got the pond on the floor sponged up okay, then decided to wait until next day to tackle the troubleshooting, let the room dry and me cool down, drink a few beers, sleep on the problem, see if tomorrow might be less, oh, ill-omened. Sometimes it’s best to admit defeat in the short term but hope your luck will change down the road. And yeah, I understand this is a corollary to superstition.

Next day dawned sunny and I awoke optimistic. I hauled the dryer off the washer, checked supply lines and drain pipes, didn’t see anything obvious so then I ran a load to see where the problem might be. An hour later I’m noticing the spin cycle doesn’t kick right but how does that explain the water? I’m running a second load when the phone rings. So I shut the machine off, figuring I’ll come back to it when my telemarketer is through with me. But it’s my old man on the line so we banter for awhile about the weather and the family health issues when suddenly … holy toilet bowl! … I hear a strange sound followed by what seems like water pouring out. “Dad,” I say, “I’ll have to call you back.” Click, then I run to the basement. The washer door has broken open and Niagara is cascading onto the floor, out the bathroom and into the hallway. The washer apparently no longer obeys electrical commands, just keeps filling up until there’s nowhere to go but out the weakest component, the locked door. The machine is now in complete control. The machine is trying to drown its former master. The machine is willing to destroy the house. The machine is now my enemy.

Like Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey disconnecting HAL, I begin to uncouple the monster. Standing in the rising water, I cut its hydro-electrical components one by one, first the cold water line, then the hot and finally its electrical umbilical. I slam the Cyclop’s one eye shut even though the belly of the beast is only half full of water below the doorline, the rest a cold numbing grip on my ankles. We take full measure of one another and it is obvious to both of us this is a battle to the death, no surrender, no terms, no pity. To … the … death. At this point it seems neither might win, but I’m a human and I understand what it does not. Fear, pure and simple. Fear, enough to rise to any occasion. Fear, what drives us to fight if flight is not an option.

It’s two days later if you’re wanting to keep track. If you want to keep score, it’s Humanity ONE and Washing Machine ZERO. The filthy brute is by now on some scrap heap in the salvage yard of hell where it will harm no one again. Sure, the basement looks like the battlefield it was. Soggy drywall beckoning black mold, a yawning pit where the Cyclops once stood, the dryer on its side down the hall, plumbing parts strewn in standing water: a wet and dark tableau of one man’s struggle against the machine but a man who understands implicitly, absolutely, the machine must be made to understand who exactly is boss here. After all, it’s his castle, ruined or not. And by the gods, if we have to do laundry by hand, we’ll do it by hand. Better to live free and slightly soiled than to be servant to the soulless machine.

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