electric mist

the time machine

Last fall, I was sitting here minding my own business, when Carl came home. He had that look in his eye, the one that said he had brought something home from a job or had stopped at some flea market somewhere and I should probably brace myself. He loves to stop at oddball places, and with him criss-crossing the state occasionally, he has ample opportunity. Sometimes, I don't so much mind -- I have some neat things on my shelves from some of his "finds" and I enjoy that sense of childlike discovery he has for all the little weird things in the world. I'm pretty sure he's not going to grow out of it (he's 44), so you know, I go with the flow. Sometimes, he brings home incredibly strange things which sit on my shelves and people don't quite know what to make of them (which is okay, too, because they are often surprised.) For example, I have these items on my shelves:

That's raw silica; in case you've never seen it up close:

It's the ingredient in cement among other things.

One day he brought home this:

That's salt from the salt domes beneath southern Louisiana. (Yes, there really are gigantic salt domes below the swamps.)

Then there's this:

That's a slice of rail -- from a job -- and the restroom sign below is a flea market find.

You probably won't know what this one is, and I'm rather embarrassed to explain it:

And another view:

(It's the tool used to castrate a bull. I'm not sure why he brought this home.)

So the day last fall when he came in with a grin, I was pretty sure I was in for something odd. When he had me stay in the office so he could hurry out and get the item, and then I heard loud thunking as he dragged it into the kitchen, I knew I was in trouble. He had brought home one of those old-fashioned hair dryers -- you know, the kind women used to sit in at the beauty shops, with the hood that hovered over their heads, blowing out hot air. The chair is black vinyl with gold flecks and the damn thing still worked. He somehow thought I was going to swoon at this one, and I promptly removed it to the garage.

Which did not deter him one bit. Before I knew what had happened, he had started adding onto it. There are wings now, people. And a rudder. And lights. Lots of strange lights. And it now vibrates when you turn it on. There are switches which do strange things. He dubbed it, "The Time Machine" and has had a ball getting people to sit in it. The next thing I know, we were in a local gallery and the owner mentioned this big "art hop" that she was having, and Carl told her that what she needed was the time machine. He started describing it, she was laughing and looking at me to see if he needed to be put away, and before I knew what had happened, she had decided he was right -- she would have the thing at her gallery for its "grand unveiling" as one of the draws to her shop.

Now, I had assumed this was relatively harmless. I keep asking him if he realizes it really is a hair dryer. Secretly, I was hoping that she would at least have ten or twenty people show up to this art hop thing -- I'd really hate to see him disappointed. But realistically, I was bracing myself to console him when Carl went back by the gallery this week to answer the owner's questions and to find out what we need to do to set everything up.

Turns out, this isn't just an art hop for her gallery -- it's a whole mid-town celebration. There are something like twenty galleries and it's the type of event that's advertised in the newspaper, radio and TV. They're expecting thousands of people to go through that gallery. They now want me to take digital photos of anyone who wants a photo in the time machine. There's going to be a tent for the special time machine event, an unveiling and, I'm told, lots of wine. (I suggested that we put up a sign requiring a three drink minimum before they even enter the tent.)

I was going to post a photo here, but he went to Wal-Mart, Michael's and Home Depot last night and bought a few other things to add to the time machine. There's an old-fashioned lunch box (because you know, when you're time traveling, you might want to pack a lunch.) There's a globe. There might even be dry ice.

Be very afraid.

Posted by toni at May 13, 2004 10:27 AM