Bill Roberts, Poet

The Appliance Coroner

Author: Bill Roberts

You really can’t know the meaning

of deprivation these days until

your microwave burns out, as ours did,

in the middle of reheating the morning coffee,

a practice with pseudo-religious significance.

It suddenly flashed an ominous blue light,

then spluttered, smoked and sighed,

too early in the cycle to ruminate

over its untimely death with

a second cup of Monsoon Malabar Gold.

Only a teenager, thirteen, same age as

our once-new house, and a top-of-the-line GE,

appliances are not what they used to be,

says my wife, who knows about appliances

except, that is, how to fix them.

The repair man, otherwise known as

The Appliance Coroner and well known to us

lately since everything seems to have

a lifespan of thirteen more or less years,

prays for the dead then renders his bill.

Sixty-nine dollars, the same as last month

when he administered last rites to a clothes drier.

A new microwave will cost six hundred bucks,

installation of new and removal of old included,

plus a promise that we’ll see him again soon.

(Published in the 2/26/09 online issue of 0f Sunken Lines Magazine)

Note:  Not surprisingly, this poetic piece was the result of too many of our appliances suddenly stiffening up and dying after living with us in our “new” house for thirteen years.  We have one of the early blenders, inherited from a sister in law fifty years ago, that still works!  Hence, “they don’t make ‘em like they used to.”  Hell, in this country they don’t even make ‘em any more.

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