The Weekly Screed (#705)

An interactive love story
for the third millenium
by David Benjamin

LAS VEGAS — Fifteen years ago, just before the Consumer Electronics Show, Cisco Systems announced a deal with Whirlpool “to jointly build networked appliances, such as washing machines that can automatically detect mechanical problems and summon a repairman…”

Remarkably, appliance makers and their high-tech enablers are still trying to a) create machines that send minute-by-minute updates to CNN, Twitter and the National Security Agency, and b) convince homeowners that a gossipy washing machine and a fridge with a spy-cam in the veggie bin is a Best Buy must-have.

The long, uphill effort to sell America on the “always-on, always-connected” laundry room has led me to ponder some of its unintended consequences…

It was barely 7 a.m. when she heard the back doorbell. Her husband, an early riser, was long gone. Leaping wet from the shower, she threw on a filmy bathrobe and rushed to answer the door. She opened it to behold a tall Adonis in a tight twill jumpsuit. His hair was a golden mane, streaked with platinum. High cheek bones and azure eyes. Teeth gleaming white in the slanting rays of the dawn. Bronzed biceps bulging from his rolled-up shirtsleeves. Blond hair curling from the V below his neck. On his left pectoral, which rippled when he raised his clipboard, the word “Whirlpool.” Below that, his name:

“Lance.”

Gaping at this Old Spice wet dream, she momentarily let slip her grip on the robe. Gallantly, Lance looked away.

“Mrs. Liskovich, I’m here about your washer. I came as quick as I could.”
“Washer?” she replied. “I didn't call about the washer.”

“No, ma’am. The washer called me. It’s got this computer inside, y’see. As
soon as somethin’ goes wrong, I get a buzz.” He smiled, a dimple denting his tanned and craggy kisser.

Half-asleep and confused, she showed him to the laundry room, then rushed upstairs to finish her shower, dress and apply a little makeup. He was heading out the back door as she returned.

“Washer checked out fine, Mrs. Liskovich,” said Lance.

“What was the problem?” she asked, hoping to keep him long enough to brew coffee. She cocked a hip fetchingly.

“Don't know, ma’am. Prob’ly just a computer glitch. But I don’t fix computers. I’m just a dumb mechanic. The ol’ Whirlpool calls me. I come.”

The doorbell rang again just after noon. She was cleaning the grout around the toilet. Hair caked with tile cleaner. Sweatshirt splotched. Pedal-pushers rumpled and bagged out in the butt. She hurried to the back door.

Lance stood there. “Sorry, ma’am. Looks like a major emergency!”

“Impossible. I haven’t used the washer,” she said. “But come in, Lance. My goodness, I must look a mess.”

Lance blushed and shuffled his feet. “Oh, if you're a mess, then Kate Upton is Godzilla, Mrs. Liskovich.”

She didn’t know quite what this meant, but their eyes met and it didn’t matter. She said, “Please, call me Heidi.”

Together with him in the laundry room, she could feel his body heat and
smell his sweat. He found nothing wrong with the washer. “Looks like another false alarm,” he said. “Sorry, ma’am — er, Heidi.”

Then he added, “I’m also real sorry about your miscarriage last year.”

“But, but,” she sputtered, shocked. “How could you know?”

“Oh, it’s in there, Heidi. In the washer. Lots of information. I’m real glad the post-op tests showed there was no damage to your, um… uterus and all. And it’s real good news about your husband’s sperm count.”

“You found Howie’s sperm count? In my washing machine?”

“Oh, sure. Lots more, too. Would you like me to print it out?”

“It prints?”

“Oh, sure! What’s your favorite font?”

After the printout, they studied Heidi’s bio together, for more than an hour. It was all there. Mononucleosis in junior high. Homecoming Queen in high school. Phi Beta Kappa key at Yale. The broken engagement to the bass player from Tulsa. The bicycle repairman in Boulder. Lance wondered why she hadn’t tried harder to fulfill her dream as an environmental physicist. She sighed, and said, “I wonder, too, Lance. Every day. Sometimes I cry.”

When the back doorbell rang again, just after six, she was ready. She wore a negligee. She reeked of Chanel No. 5, her auburn hair cascading onto her naked shoulders. She plunged her hands into his jumpsuit and covered his chest with burning kisses.

“Oh, Heidi!” he cried out. Aroused by her beauty, he lifted her with one arm and tore at the gauzy fabric that barely covered her throbbing bosom. She pointed him toward the bedroom.

“Wait,” he said. “Your husband.”

“Are you kidding?” she said. “He never looks up from his desk until almost
midnight. From Monday to Saturday, I never see the workaholic nerd.”

“But you never know,” said Lance. “Maybe there was a power failure at his office. Maybe he knocked off early. We should check on him.”

“What? Call? What’s the use? All I ever get is his damn voicemail.”

“We can check the Whirlpool,” said Lance.

“The washing machine?”

“Oh, sure,” said Lance. “He’s in there. As long as he’s using his computer,
or his cellphone, his iPad or even the coffee machine in his office, we can find him. Track him right down. The washer’s got GPS, surveillance video, motion sensors, Netflix, you name it!”

As Lance was accessing Howie’s longitude and latitude on the spin-cycle, she clawed at his jumpsuit and licked his body. They never made it out of the laundry room.

Later, as they lay gasping blissfully on the linoleum, she asked, “Lance, darling, do you smoke afterwards?”

“I don't know,” said Lance. “I never looked.”