Tuesday, May 26, 2009

This Doorbell Has To Go !!!

Following on from my recent post about my possessed doorbell, I now have to inform you about my enchanted toothbrush !

I've got one of those Braun rechargeable toothbrushes that stutters a bit after 2 minutes to let you know that you've been brushing for 2 minutes and if you don't stop, you'll be through the enamel and about to clean the raw nerves.  Never a good thing although a clean nerve is probably a good nerve.

A week or so ago that feature stopped working and being so used to it, I suddenly realised it was lunchtime and I was still cleaning my teeth. Then a few days ago when I removed the toothbrush from the charging unit, it wouldn't work at all.  No amount of threats or cajolling worked and it remained resolutely dead.  An ex toothbrush.  Kicked the bucket.  Bereft of life.  Joined the bleedin' choir invisible !

I knew that rechargeable gadgets have a life and on the Braun site it said that my toothbrush would only last for 3-5 years and then be as useful as an ex parrot.  And mine was.  

Like I said, that was a few days ago and every so often since then, I'd give it another good talking to and numerous violent, if not very techologically reasonable, shakes.  Like the careers of Cannon & Ball, it remained dead. 

So this afternoon I decided to buy another toothbrush and looked for the best deal online. As they gave a good price with free shipping, I duly gave my credit card details to Amazon and probably several hackers in Kenya.  

At this point Daphne came in for a cup of tea and a chat after tending to my garden and as I still had the toothbrush in my hand, I told her the sad story. Wanting to show her just what a dead rechargeable toothbrush was like so that she could add it to her list of life experiences,  I pressed the on button for the 200th time in the last few days.  Nothing happened.

Well what did you expect, dear reader ?   Nope, it didn't burst into life. Nothing so obvious.

As I was talking and therefore, being a man, unable to do two things at once, I didn't turn it off. A few seconds later, the damn thing did burst into life and there I stood, open mouthed, with this vibrating thing in my hand.  Oh behave !!

Yes it spluttered at first.  In fact it ran slowly for about 3 seconds and stopped, started up again and stopped and basically took about 30 seconds of this starting and stopping before it finally came up to full speed and stayed going. 

"You bastard", I shouted, somewhat unreasonably.  "Why couldn't you have done this 5 minutes ago before I bought a new one ?????"

I think it's been in cahoots with my possessed doorbell as remember it was coming out with "testing, testing 1-2-3".  There is some sort of demonic bluetoothing going on here, I suspect. The machines are rising up, I tells ya.

I haven't cancelled the Amazon order as I still think the toothbrush, even rising from its deathbed as it has, is on its way out.   

What's worrying me is what device the doorbell is going to mess with next.  The tv ?  The vacuum cleaner ?   My mp3 player ?

I'm just glad my car's brakes aren't electronic !

7 comments:

Daphne said...

I did glance at the doorbell. Do they usually wink like that? I didn't like to ask.

jay said...

Your car brakes might not be electronic, but I bet your car locks are! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I bought an electric toothbrush today. For our new dog!

Kathleen said...

Loved your toothbrush story!

I've been looking for some entertaining retirement/retiree blogs and boy is it hard to find any. Most dwell on either how you should amass a huge amount of money before you can even think about retiring - or have a paranoid view of how to hold on to that money once you take the retirement plunge.

Your blog is a burst of fresh air in the stodgy retirement blog community - keep it up!

Debby said...

Hide the hair dryer! It's the one I use!!!!

Anonymous said...

Your stop by my blog prompted by stop at your blog. I can related to the toothbrush thing, only when mine died, it stayed dead. And the instructions that come with these things; "you have 4 quandrants in your mouth; brush each section for the same amount of time", etc. I didn't know I HAD quandrants in my mouth! My dentist never told me about those!!

Silverback said...

Thank you ladies. I'm getting a bit worried that few men read my blog. Hmmmmm.

Thanks for the kind words, Kathleen. Yes I love retirement and what's not to like about it ?
If only I'd enough money to enjoy it more, well I'd enjoy it more !!

rhymeswithplague said...

I'm a man.

Most Recent Awards

Most Recent Awards