Bananas about machines

So I'm standing in the damp dark dusty furnace room brushing cobwebs out of my face with one hand while holding the phone to my ear with the other so I can relay instructions from the husband, who happens to be at his brother's house in Florida, to the adolescent squatting in front of the water heater. The kid and I have just emerged from cold showers and we are not happy that the water heater has selected this dismally cold morning to take a hiatus from responsibility, so we're pleased when, following the husband's telephoned instructions, we finally find and press a button featuring tiny letters that might say "Reset" or might just as well say "Detonate," and then all we have to do is find and replace the screw I dropped on the cold damp dusty floor. Mission accomplished. "By the way," says the husband, "I'm out in the yard right now, picking bananas."

May he drive through cold drizzle all the way home.

This morning I asked my American Lit students what Henry Adams might have meant when he described the dynamo as a moral force inspiring awe: "Before the end, one began to pray to it; inherited instinct taught the natural expression of man before silent and infinite force." Does anyone really worship machines? Do we go out to the power plant at sunrise to offer sacrifices to the gigantic turbines? If only it were that easy: lay a burnt offering of last night's leftover lamb before the water heater so it will continue to supply hot showers, or heave a wave offering of homemade bread before the furnace so it will keep our toes toasty at night. Instead, we genuflect on the damp floor and mutter imprecations while hunting for a wayward screw, and we hope we've pressed the right button.

If not, the husband will soon be home and he'll know how to placate the furnace and harness the mysterious silent power of the water heater. May the sun shine on him all the way home, and may he bring us offerings of bananas.