A funny thing happened...

[matrixrefugee]

...while my mother was vacuum-cleaning the rugs downstairs yesterday. She was hoovering the rug in the dining room, and upstairs I was typing part of "This Shouldn't Be Happening..." when suddenly I hear this awful crash and my mother lets out a yelp followed by loud giggling. I run downstairs to see what had happened, and I find her paralyzed with laughter, the handle of the vacuum cleaner in her hand, papers scattered all over the floor and the middle part of the vacuum cleaner, the hard case that contains the bag and the filters, on the other side of the room. Apparantly, the clips that hold the case to the body of the vacuum cleaner had worked themselves loose and as she was vacuuming, the case came flying off. Says my mother, "I expected the bag to break open and the dirt to go everywhere. But it's still going and there's air blowing out of it, and there's papers flying everywhere!" We've had problems with an internal plug working loose in the thing so that it turns itself on and off repeatedly while you're running it, but nothing like this!

Aside from housecleaning and working a four-hour closing shift last night, it was pretty quiet yesterday. Oh, yes, one other thing: I got home early enough to watch the last hour of the movie "All the President's Men" on one of the local PBS stations; I've been wanting to see that for ages, especially since the identity of the real "Deep Throat" was revealed last summer. And I have to admit, the fanfiction-writing part of my brain wants to write a "Matrix" fic that uses the tropes of "All the President's Men" (Heh, I suppose if you think metaphorically, the whole mess involving the Watergate scandal was a manifestation of the Matrix that was the Nixon administration...). It could work: a young reporter could notice something odd about his world, he runs a story about it, then he catches the attention of an Exiled Agent (call him Agent Feld, in honor of W. Mark Feld, the guy who was "Deep Throat") who shares more information with him... then wierd things start to happen.

Yeah, I know some fans would whine at me -- probably the PvP wonks who are always spamming me with /duel requests at hardlines when I'm trying to run RP sessions or missions in the MxO -- for writing a NON-action oriented fanfic. They haven't read "A Path Among Stones" or "A Life Less Empty" in the "Matrix Comics" and they need to, though they'd probably whine OH TAHTZ TEH BORINGZZZ!!1111 WHERZ TEH KEWL FIHGT SCEEENZ??????/////!!111111

Comments

[cerulianphoenix.livejournal.com]

That is the strangest thing I've ever heard of involving a vacuum. It's especially funny since it didn't burst open and send dust everywhere. But seriously that vacuum must have an artificial intelligence, it obviously didn't want to suck anymore.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

I think our vacuum cleaner might be possessed (I also think some of the shopping carts at work are possessed, since there's a few that like to start rolling for no reason at all, and usually end up rolling right into a display or a customer), but why would a demon possess a vacuum cleaner or a shopping cart?

Or it could be artificially intelligent, and that AI has a mischievous streak a mile wide.

[cerulianphoenix.livejournal.com]

The shopping carts could very well be possessed but I don't think the vacuum cleaner is. If it was possessed wouldn't the demon have caused the contents to spill out? Methinks it's just a mischievous AI, though I'm not a professional on this one bit. Perhaps a priest is in order? Or try sprinkling some holy water onto the vacuum and see what happens.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Hee, you're right about the vacuum cleaner *not* being possessed. What's scary is that I once prayed a short exorcism in Latin (according to Malachi Martin, who for many years served as an exorcist in the Archidiocese of New York City, demons will practically ignore any commands *not* given in Latin) over a particularly unruly shopping cart. And it suddenly stopped being a pain.

[cerulianphoenix.livejournal.com]

Yes, buy shopping carts seem to be naturally possessed. They always have that one wheel that jiggles or some other infuriating fault to frustrate and annoy. There's no surprise that prayers for an exorcism would be needed to rid the cart of those nuisances.

I don't have much knowledge in the field of exorcism, but I recently read a book about one: The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385157894/102-0132235-5858556?v=glance&n=283155). During the exorcisms I recall the priests "carrying a conversation" with the demons in German. Now that you mention it I can also remember that every time they commanded something, they did so in Latin. The demons often howled, ridiculed, begged, etc. the priests to not address them in Latin.

[cerulianphoenix.livejournal.com]

I dislike typos; it shouldn't read buy shopping carts and instead read but shopping carts.

[(Anonymous)]

*amused by the idea of a demonic shopping trolley* I don't think they're possessed but I wouldn't be suprised if there was some sort of diabolical influence at work (personally, I blame Crowley), even though I can't actually remember having ever used a weird trolley myself (something which is probably weird in itself), I'm pretty sue my mum has. Kinda reminds me of these ads they had on TV a while back. Think "Toy Story" with trolleys instead of toys and you get the general idea. If you don't mind me asking, why exactly did you exorcise a shopping trolley?
~Weaver