My coffee machine has a warming plate with an on-off switch.
After I fill my teacup, I prefer to shut the warmer off,
to circumvent catastrophe.
Every time I turn off the warming plate,
I pour the leftover coffee into a thermos,
for safe keeping.
This coffee thermos has a lid that screws on;
which, if not properly tightened,
allows air to escape.
Now, when air seeps out from the thermos lid,
a noise occurs,
not unlike the sound of a baby bird weeping.
Every time I hear this sound,
it wins my attention;
so, last night,
when a noise seemed to come from the direction of the thermos,
I walked over, leaned my head down and listened close . . .
But there was silence.
So I began to walk away.
However,
before I could take a single step,
the sound happened again,
and, this time,
it was clearly and plainly coming from the coffee thermos;
therefore, I turned to the thermos and exclaimed:
“Oh, you ARE sick!”
The following explains my reason for saying those words:
In the movie Eraserhead (1977),
when the main character Henry takes his baby’s temperature,
it appears normal,
so he begins to turn away;
just then, however,
an alarming effect on the soundtrack coincides with a new shot of the same baby,
who now appears obviously blighted;
and, Henry, seeing this,
exclaims the identical phrase.
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| Image from an old encyclopedia which has nothing to do with anything above. |