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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Death Machine

Ever since I was old enough to blow dry my hair I’ve heard horror stories of blow dryers turning into flamethrowers, making bad hair days seem like nothing but a mild annoyance in comparison. I have a slight aversion to fire in my hair, so I tend to listen to my blow dryer and whenever it sounds like it might become engulfed in flames, I turn it off. So far this hasn’t happened too often, but the other day when I was using my faithful blow dryer of 10 years, it finally exploded in a gigantic fireball. Or, as my loving boyfriend will be the first to point out, mostly just started sounding funny and turned itself off, no drama, no nothing. Frankly, I was a little disappointed, I had waited for the spectacular fireworks forever and this is what I got. But still, I was cautious enough to actually go out and get a new one instead of using the old one until it died of catastrophic failure as everything else I own. The old one I hid in the bathroom in case the new one meets a sudden and fiery death.

My new blow dryer is the size of a small pony. It’s pretty and silver and has purple buttons. Also, it has enough drying power to cure monsoon season and the power it uses could supply a small African country with power for a year. But it’s very pretty.

Excited about using it for the first time, I washed my hair and sat down to read the safety instructions. Did you know you’re not allowed to use it in the bathroom? This, of course, makes perfect sense cause I’d much rather dry my hair in the kitchen anyway. The instructions also stated that small children and people with a mental handicap aren’t allowed to use it; at least not without guidance by a responsible adult. I think my blow dryer will be safe as long as I don’t let my boyfriend my sister most of my friends small children use it. There were more instructions, but since they all seemed completely ridiculous I chose to ignore them and just get on with it. By now my hair was almost dry already, which is a good thing cause you weren’t actually allowed to use the blow dryer on wet hair. I would have loved to know what lawsuit prompted that warning.

With the safety instructions fresh in mind, I tempted fate and took the blow dryer into the bathroom and fired it up, no pun intended. At this, three things happened simultaneously: I instantly went deaf, the neighbors called the cops and my boyfriend thought the world as we know it had come to an end and ran for cover came running to my rescue. The thing sounded like a jet plane taking off in my bathroom. I now understand why it was the size of a small pony – jet engines don’t come any smaller. After I had explained to the neighbors that I wasn’t in fact torturing small kittens with a chainsaw and pulled out my boyfriend from underneath the bed reassured my boyfriend, I turned the death machine on low and tried again.

Not only did it sound like I had an F1 car in the bathroom, it also tried to burn my hand off. The pretty shiny plastic became so hot I was surprised it didn’t end up in a molten puddle on the bathroom floor. And this is what I was supposed to aim at my head. Even after I turned down the effect and only used it on low it felt like it would self-destruct at any second, probably while doing a pretty decent impression of an active volcano.

But on the plus side – it did dry my hair pretty damn fast, so I might just keep it anyway. If my apartment goes up in flames, you’ll know it wasn’t me – it was the death machine. *
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8 comments:

  1. hahahahahahaha

    Once upon a time in the land of flame throwers there was a little jet engine who blew them all away with it's blowing abilities.

    hahahaha

    My hair dryer once threw a spark onto my wet towel and I'm pretty sure it was attempting to kill me, but didn't succeed as I outsmarted it.

    Remind yourself to wear an oven mitt when you operate the jet engine. I would hate for you to burn those pretty little hands and I bet M would hate that too. LOL

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  2. Dammit, I knew the blow dryers of the world were getting together in an attempt to eradicate us poor humans. Soon they'll be electrocuting people left and right and then we'll have blow dryers using our cars and sitting in out sofas, reading our papers, chatting mindlessly with other blow dryers about the people they've burnt to a crisp.

    ...I'm so getting those oven mitts ready...

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  3. I'd just like to point out that she actually didn't need to pull me out from underneath the bed - but the noise sure was deafening. Except from that, the description is actually very accurate. ;P

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  4. Nope, you were very brave and came out all by yourself. I'm so proud of you, honey. :P

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  5. Hey! I can SO use death machines without your supervision! And with my superluck and superhair I don't even need to (because in about two days it's all dry all by itself)!
    IN YOUR FACE bigsis'!

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  6. Muschu - yeah, what's up with that anyway?? How come you got all the looks in the family? You look like a life-sized Barbie doll with that massive amount of long blonde hair and what I have is more like feathers glued to my head.

    I'm telling mom I think she brought home the wrong baby from the hospital when you were born.

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  7. I don't use a death machine, blow dryer or flame thrower. I just drive down the highway at 80 mph with my head hung out the window like a dog. When I get where I'm going I just smooth the hair away from my face and have that fresh from the beach/sex hair going for me :)

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  8. Manda, you crack me up! Now I have the image of you driving down the highway with your head hung out the window, your tongue flapping in the wind, burned into my mind.

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