There is a Zombie Star in space right now. It keeps exploding, over and over again. And the thing is massive. It keeps dying, and coming back to life again, like…. welllll…. A Zombie.
Tonight I wrote about it in great length. Every little boom, pop, and flare up. I speculated about the subsequent champagne bottles uncorking wildly in earthly astronomers’ labs across the land.
But then I realized most of you would be bored to tears about these Zombie Stars. (We have enough Zombie Stars on earth already. The ones who keep appearing in really bad movies, over and over again.)
Then I got to wondering about life in the Astonomer’s Lab, and the Hubble Telescope, and all of that. What if right in the middle of a big discovery, the eye piece on the Super-Duper-Zoomer-Scope falls off, rolls around on the floor, and stops at the boot of Dr. Roland Zigmeyer. What then? Do they call the janitor to fix it, or someone in maintenance? Or is there an entire team of Nerds who descend upon the lab like buzzards, to peck and prod at the telescope? Certainly, they fix it, and don’t just order a new one? Or do they?
We have become a society of ordering “new ones” I think. People don’t fix things like they used to. I have been guilty of this myself. It is often cheaper to buy the newer version of the “thing” than to try and fix it. Electronics have gotten less expensive, by a landslide margin. So why not get the latest and greatest?
Our microwave recently went on the blink. It would run for 18 seconds and then call it quits. Emotionally scarred, I think it was. The front display would suddenly tell the world that its inverter board had had enough. Called it quits. (Which interests me to no end. To invert is to turn upside down, or inside out. What would a microwave be transposing in there?). Regardless. It made a self-proclamation that it could no longer flip things around electronically.
Truthfully, I did the math. I wanted to replace the thing. But Mary said she wanted us to try for a fix. Easy for her. I’m the girl in charge of the fix. I conceded.
So “we” called a guy. He replaced that injured inverter board. Then the same error message reappeared. At this point, I wanted to call a Psychiatrist. But the guy suggested we replace the Mother Board. This sounds Freudian to me. I suggest the Shrink, once again. But nooooo. We replace the Mother Board.
So now we have an “Adopted” microwave on our hands. I promise, someday, to find out who its true motherboard was. Regardless. The moment of truth now. We heat up a cup of water, and??? Same error message.
The guy. He scratches the stubble on his chin. This is his third visit to our home. He goes outside still scratching various body parts. After 20 minutes, he returns with a metal box which he calls Magnetron. It sounds like a Villain in a SuperHero Movie to me. He puts it into the guts of the microwave. And. It works. The old Magnetron was on the fritz. Who knew?
Maybe I should have rambled on about the Zombie Star, because now you are bored to tears with our misguided microwave.
My point is this. Our society, it seems, has moved away from the notion of fixing things. We have become replacers. In the literal sense, we are filling our landfills with a lot of discarded and unwanted items. Many of our streets have become littered with blight.
On a broader sense, we wave our hands when something isn’t quite working. Do away with it, we say. Let’s start anew.
Planet Earths needs a visit from Captain Fix-It and Magnetron. I think they live on that Zombie Star.
And. As the old saying goes, “If it ain’t broke. Don’t fix it.”
Perhaps it should have an addendum. “If it IS broke, go ahead. Fix it.”
Boy, I hope your car starts today.
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At the end of the day, you’re responsible for yourself and your actions and that’s all you can control. So rather than be frustrated with what you can’t control, try to fix the things you can. — Kevin Garnett
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We’re all on a continuous journey to try and fix our mistakes and flaws. And, believe me, I’ve got plenty of them. — Ezekiel Emanuel
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Broken! Busted! Everybody has something to repair. Before buying new, let Mighty Putty fix it for you. — Billy Mays
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