Some years ago, I lived in a tiny apartment in Santa Barbara with my lovely wife née fiancée née girlfriend. The main room was big enough for an ugly couch, a particle board wardrobe used as a hall closet of sorts, a coffee table, and a table we used as a television stand. That last item came in handy when I bought a t.v. that I saw on sale at Circuit City. It wasn’t anything fancy by any means, but it was bigger (and newer) than the one we’d been using up to that point.
The t.v.’s brand was Apex, which was close enough to Acme that it made me laugh on several occasions. That wasn’t the best thing about it though; nay, the best thing had to do with its volume. If I ever wanted to get a laugh out of fellow blogger MC Squared (who lived next door to us at the time), all I had to do was turn the volume from 0 to 1 Level 1 was louder than it should’ve been. Way louder in fact. I think 0.5 would’ve still been too loud if it existed, and 0.25 probably close to right. “Come on!” MC Squared would yell while cracking up. “That’s 1? How can that be 1? That’s impossible!” It got him every single time, and I can’t blame him. As I mentioned, the place was really small, so volume control actually mattered. My lovely wife would often go to bed before me, and if I were watching t.v. or playing video games with MC Squared, sometimes 1 was actually too loud. I tried putting a rolled up towel against the speaker a couple of times, but it didn’t make much of a difference; the power of volume level 1 would not be denied. In the end, I’d play games on mute occasionally or just be ready with the mute button if the show I was watching looked like it was about to break out into a gunfight. Still, it was pretty ridiculous to have to take those measures because my television was incapable of having just a wee bit of volume.
I thought about that old t.v. this morning while in the shower. I realize that might sound a little strange, but please allow me to explain. You see, the shower in the master bathroom of our new house has interesting controls. There are two handles, and each only turns one quarter of a turn. That 90-degree turn makes it go from nothing to full hot (or full cold). I’m used to two to four twists of a knob to get the water flowing, so this feels strange. In my mind, a quarter turn should get a trickle going, not be the most extreme turn possible. In any case, I usually turn the hot on and leave the cold alone. I like hot showers, and it’s almost always the right temperature for me without touching the cold handle. Every so often though, it’s a little too hot and I want to take it down a notch. Today was one of those days, and here’s why I thought of my old t.v.: I barely touched the frickin’ cold handle before it was already colder than I wanted. I tried moving it back just a smidgen, but I guess I went too far and turned the cold off completely again. I tried once more but was met with the cold water equivalent to volume level 1. In the end, I did a little tap-tap-tap to make incremental movements to just slightly cool the water. I was eventually successful after a few trial and error runs, but I felt a little silly having to resort to those measures. I checked, and the shower handles were not made by Apex, Pinnacle, Summit, Zenith, or any other synonym of Acme.
Yes, I realize that it’s probably easy to fix that problem, but that’s not my point. My point is that I can’t be alone in wanting things that don’t only go from 0 to 60, so why would they be made that way? Do they make microwaves that are unable to heat under a minute? Are there bowling alleys that only carry 6 and 16 pound balls? Do steakhouses only offer “rare” and “burnt” as cooking options? One thing is for sure: I’m hungry after thinking about steak. Peace out.
