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Monday 27 June 2011

Can your fridge play the tuba?

For those of you who don't know, I live behind a takeaway shop. This means that I am never at a loss for fat saturated, unhealthy food and chocolate. (Some of our customers take the chocolate and batter it as well...) This also means that I smell like canola oil more often than not and that I also work flipping burgers in a part time sense because I don't have to pay rent. Also, I'm the night time security because what drugged up robber wouldn't be scared of a girl who still wears her hair in pigtails and has penguins on her purple pyjamas? Or ninja pandas on her green ones...

Now, in said shop, there are several fridge/freezer set ups. Each for a different product or brand because it's bad to have Coke next to Pepsi...plus the companies complain if they find a place that has been doing that.* It's all about the branding people. Personally, I think it's because Coke and Pepsi run a secret fight club but I have an overactive imagination.

Where was I? Ah, yes, those fridges. Well, as you can imagine having that many fridges running you would have a lot of white noise. And, you'd be correct.

In normal circumstances I tend to drown it out. You do tend to get used to it but this morning, possibly because of the cold, it sounded like a marching band had set up camp in the shop. I swear, I could have placed my hand on the wall and felt it vibrating from all the damn things. Plus, one of them started making this weird gurgling sound followed by a 'whump' sound. So, one of them makes this pulsing sound, the other makes a soft rattling sound at random intervals and the others tend to harmonise whenever they can. All in all, I believe they are trying to communicate with us mere humans but we just haven't realised this yet. Or, they are communicating with each other as they plan their revenge on us for years of opening and closing doors while repeatedly placing and removing their innards.

We interrupt this transmission because the fridges have gone quiet. Their is still a little hum but the gurgling has stopped and the random thudding has also ceased. The only sound now, aside from the clicking of the keys is that of my little heating as he valiantly attempts to warm me.

Anyway, all this thinking that machines are aware reminds me of a short story by Stephen King that was made into a terrible film. "The Mangler". It's basically about a machine in a wash house that gets possessed by a demon and gets a taste for blood.

I am going to finish here because I'm pretty sure that my vacuum cleaner is staring at me...

*I speak from experience as it happened to us when we first opened the takeaway shop. One of the reps went a little crazy and red in the face. It was all very funny.

4 comments:

  1. sort of like a david lynch movie, eh?

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  2. Sounds like a great place to live, but I love chocolate, burgers, and all things fried.

    I have a great idea. You should put the Coke machine next to the Pepsi machine, and schedule both vendors to restock machines at the exact same time.

    I bet we could see a fist fight. Get it on video.

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  3. We make a pretty mean burger. Beetroot, pineapple, real meat pattie...damn it, now I'm hungry.

    Ooh, that would be funny. I keep imagining them to fight just by slapping. I don't know why that is.

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