Sunday, September 4, 2011

A Memorial for my Refrigerator


When she was born, I was a boy.  I walked three blocks to my neighborhood school every day to attend the sixth grade.  My teacher's name was Ms. Skaros.  The Rubik's Cube had just been invented, and the hot new teen fashion style was "preppy."  My voice hadn't broken yet.  My "girlfriend" was Anne Schultz.
"The Wall" was still hugely popular, although "That Wall" had not yet been torn down.   The military action of the day in Afghanistan involved the U.S.S.R., not the United States.  Rambo had just tasted his First Blood.  The Officer was just becoming a Gentleman.
James Rockford could have put his $0.79/lb steak in this refrigerator.  The Muppet Show could have had one of these refrigerators in their green room.  The Talking Heads hadn't started making Stop Making Sense yet.
A handful of computers existed on the "Internet," although the web was still a decade to come.  The hot new computers were from IBM and the software was from Wordstar.  Microsoft Word hadn't been invented.  Pac Man was the video game craze.  Apple's new Lisa computers were a flop.
The big Packer's "B" was Bart, not Brett.  The Milwaukee Brewers took their only trip to the World Series.
Pioneer 11 had encountered Saturn three years before, paving the way for Voyager 2's first real close-up and color pictures of this ringed planet and its moons.  The controversy over how fast our universe was flying apart was starting to rage.
This is the world my refrigerator was born to in the year 1982.  Someone else purchased this refrigerator then to keep their vittles cold, and I inherited it.  Now it is time to move on to a more efficient and useful one.  May she rest in pieces at the landfill.

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