You can hardly blame me, I mean, it was three a.m., and I needed sleep. So, let's try this again, shall we?
In my family, Christmas is greeted with one of two reactions: (1) "OMGEEFREETHINGS," and, (2) "Fuck. I have to fork over money for useless things again." Being eighteen, I've obviously outgrown the first reaction. Oh, wait. No I haven't.
Now, don't get me wrong, we don't actually celebrate Christmas as anything more than a way to pretend to be a normal, functional family for a few hours before we all retreat to our secluded corners of the house, connected only to the world by the internet. In this way, we're much like the spiders that like to nest in the siding of our house from August to November - we have our web connecting us to the outside world, and sometimes we like to go outside, but if anyone gets too close, we just run right back to our lair and cry ourselves to sleep.
That said, we also don't observe the ancient ritual of waiting until 8:04:15 in the morning on December 25th to open presents. We used to, and let me tell you, my parents have never been slower to make themselves a cup of coffee and sit down in the living room than they are at 8:03:21 on Christmas morning. But we don't now, at least, not this year. This year, I got to open my present the minute it arrived, which was at some point last week, I think.
Now, it is important to note that I was tired that day, if my memories are correct, and they probably are(n't) as I proceed.
So, I open the box, and lovingly tug my Zlive out of its box. I pull the Styrofoam protectors, that make it fit the box perfectly, off tenderly, cherishing every moment. But what's this? the cord is wrapped up separately, but still attached, because it's wrapped in the same plastic. Well, it's just going to get in my way if I don't grab the scissors and cut it off right this second. This is simply unacceptable. About halfway through the plastic umbilical cord keeping the power cord attached to the rest of the system, I note that this plastic is very difficult to cut through, and that I really need to do more work strengthening my hands, because I really shouldn't be having problem with this, as the scissors are quite sharp.
My thirteen-for-forty-first-time father is standing not far off, watching passively. From his view, I imagine the look of confusion on my face, as I discovered the three to five inch stretch of cord, terminating in a suspicious way that seemed almost as though some moron had cut through it with scissors, sticking out of the back of my brand new, $45 Zlive, must have been priceless. The look of realization, and the mental facepalm that shortly followed, upon my discovery that the cord I'd just freed also terminated in a suspicious manner, was likely amusing by its own merit, but my utterance, "Fuck my life," really made it a special, failblog worthy moment.
He, of course, doesn't know what failblog is, but he found it hilarious nonetheless.
I didn't know what to do. They weren't just going to buy me another one! There went adjusting the volume to the perfect level from my bed. And not having to worry about my computers hard drive letting its magical smoke run free at last. There was no way it could be fix-. "Don't worry," he tells me through his laughter, in the infuriating manner that only my father possesses.
For once, I found his interjection into my affairs to be a wanted thing. YES. PLEASE DO SGASDKHAS:DGLKJH, I think, complete with incomprehensible key-board mashing, nodding pathetically at him and offering to go finish what he was doing if he'd fix it that minute. And he did. My day went from awesome, to mortifying and completely worth dying over, to pretty okay in the span of twenty minutes, as I peeled eggs while he stripped the wires and reunited my Zlive and its lifeline. And I've been trying to be nice him ever since.
Because I suffer from Pride, among a few of the other deadly sins, I feel the need to clarify that I am not a complete ignoramus on the topic of wires and connecting them. I once had to put a new end on an ethernet cable - dear god, that was horrible - and I have wired motors to motor controls to batteries and so on. However, that was for robotics, which is a place where the magical properties of the cord that connects my TV to the wall, without which said TV doesn't work, are replaced by physics and the knowledge that it's electricity doing this, and that inside the insulation there are, in fact wires. I was in home mode and quite upset with myself at the time, and, maybe, eventually I would have thought, What the hell? I could just strip the wires, add some connectors, and smother it all in electricians' tape and everything would be perfectly okay. But that likely would have been long after I'd thrown it out, unused, and moved on with my horrible life.
Instead of submitting to the violent urge I have to be a loser and spam my own comments, I should be working on my novel, like a good little novelist.
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