JANUARY 7, 2025 – (Cont.) This unnerving development led me back to Google, this time with the critical search term, “video.” The top hit was a link to Tik Tok. I’d heard of Tik Tok, of course, but I’d never ventured forth. As a purist afflicted with a bad case of genetically-sourced OCD aversion to bad grammar, which occasionally spills over to other abuses, such as mispelling . . . I mean, misspelling . . . , I find the omission of the “c’s” in “tick-tock [hickory-dock]” off-putting—one more sign of the decline of America, except, wait a sec: Tik Tok is owned and manipulated by the Chinese, right? So . . . the name isn’t so much a sign of our decline as it is proof that we’re under outside assault.
I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, in danger of being sucked into a vortex of shameful ignorance and out-of-my-mind anger over the confounding design of our mindless, cordless Dyson.
Initially I skirted the Tik Tok video and went straight to a YouBoob source. It was a four-minute demonstration featuring a Dyson, to be sure, but definitely not our model. Moreover, the unhelpful focus was on replacement of a hepa filter. Our Dyson isn’t equipped with a hepa filter. I tried two other YouTube videos, both of which led me deeper into the Land of Unhelpfulness in the World of Wasted Time. A new reality formed: the sole remaining alternative to YouAreTubed appeared to be . . . Chinese spies via Tik Tok. My predicament reminded me of Aldous Huxley, but that’s neither here nor there but nowadays, everywhere.
What was particularly irksome was that my very first venture into President Xi’s worldwide web of espionage was semi-helpful. The demonstrator, who, of course, was a disarmingly non-Chinese individual speaking unaccented American English, took an eminently clear, “git-er-done” approach to detaching and reattaching the troublesome dirt collection canister of a cordless Dyson. In less than 10 seconds this woman of at least adequate smarts unlocked the secret that had eluded my decidedly below average smarts. Much as the prestidigitator uses hidden wires and table curtains to pull a rabbit out of a hat, the Dyson Dame first removed the “business-end cylinder contraption” (my nomenclature) from the canister before attaching the canister to the handle.
I felt much as I do when I’m up at cabin, violating my standing rule of wearing gloves when handling lumber, catching a splinter that drives itself deep under my skin causing pain and distraction from the work at hand, then leading to a colossal waste of time as I search for tweezers, next a needle, finally a match to sterilize the needle as my mother taught me to do. After a sub-sub-surficial mining operation, I eventually snag the black splinter (why are splinters always black, even when the source is a piece of wood as yellow and mellow as can be found in any lumberyard?), and despite all the commotion, I then feel giddy with triumph—all so I can simply resume work on the project at hand(s)—this time with gloves.
In any event, thanks to the Tik Tok video, my self-esteem rebounded instantly, as my psychosis likewise dissipated, and my frustration and inclination toward expletives vanished without an echo. In my relief I chased away all desire to understand, exactly, why, removal of the “business-end cylinder contraption” before attaching the canister made all the difference. Why burst the Tik Tok bubble? I was like the spectator beholding the rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick who prefers not to burst his bubble of amusement and therefore expends no effort to learn the truth behind the magician’s “magic.”
Life was good again—for about a minute. (Cont.)
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
