A bedtime tale

She looks over the contract searching for some semblance of a broken clause, or some nuance she can exploit.  Unable to locate the weak link in the chain but confident in her ability, she signs with a wanton flourish.  She slides the contract over to me and notices my smug demeanor as I quickly scratch my signature next to hers in blood.  She sighs, "What is your first wish, mortal?"

"Not yet" I calmly interject.  "I will let you know when I need something."

"No, mortal!  You will heed..."  She abruptly stops and I hold my finger up and thumb through the 666 pages (a subtle nuance of the contract I made to toy with my would-be tormentor) of the legally binding covenant scrawled on ancient papyrus bound in the flayed skin of sinners.

"Section 65, article 6, line 3", I mention with no change in my stoic demeanor.

She summons her copy with a flash of flame and a gnashing of teeth.  A claw scans for the specific verbiage and a scowl crawls across her brow.

"Fine.  For now, but rest assured mortal - you will not enjoy the outcome of this transaction."

I awake from my slumber, wondering if what just happened was a dream or was an actual deal with the devil.  It was an amusing dream, it felt good to outsmart such a malevolent being even if it was just a subconscious foray into oblivion.

I go about my morning routine, the mundane necessities of "adulting."  I arrive at work, sit down at my desk, and notice a strange e-mail with no subject and only a suspiciously large document attached.  The return e-mail address is from a domain I don't recognise.  Just spam.  I flag the message, block the sender and go about my day.  Lunch, meetings, conference calls etc.  The normal work day.

I walk to my car, unlock the door, sit down and immediately turn the AC on to high.  There is no spring in middle Tennessee, only a calm before the storm of 80% humidity accompanied by 90% mosquito season.  About halfway through my innocuous drive home laden with traffic, my sports talk radio station is riddled with static.  I switch stations, more static.  The entire spectrum is static.  Out of my peripheral vision, a figure is now sitting in the passenger seat.

"You didn't read my e-mail?"

My eyes widen as I quickly realise that it was no dream.  There sat in my passenger seat was a 6' raven haired beauty.  Loose curls tumbling to her shoulders, red lipstick, and piercing blue eyes behind tortoise framed glasses.  A gorgeous personification which seemed to be tailored to my mortal leanings.  Her skirt is just short enough, the slit tantalizing me as I drive.  Her legs, slender and tapered down to her 4 inch red heels.  Her blouse, one button too low undone revealing just the right amount of intrigue with red lace peeking out.  I chuckle to myself at the feeble attempt to coerce me into the process that would see me ultimately forfeit my eternal soul.

"Jezebeth", I confidently assert, acknowledging her presence.

"Yes, master?" She responds as to allude to her subservience.

"I'm not your master, just your boss, and you can leave.  You're not needed right now."

Her eyes fade from their former piercing blue hue and turn black in an instant.  Her voice is now devoid of the soft feminine tone used in the attempt to lead me to my downfall.  Her brow furrows and the glow of her supple skin takes on a shade reflective of her rage.

"Listen to me, you infinitesimal mortal!  I will not be toyed with!"

"Section 72, article 15, line..."

Before I can finish my recital of the clause in the contract that I have been crafting since the age of 17 in Christian high school, the succubus bellowed, snapped her fingers and vanished.  The static is gone, replaced by the faint smells of smoke, flint and blood.  Back to disagreeing with every word of my local sports talk radio personality concluding my mundane ride home.

Weeks pass with almost daily occurrences like the one on my commute.  The frustration is mounting in my contractually obligated minion.

She's not trying as hard as before, and it shows.  I turn on the lights in the bathroom and she stands behind me as I brush my teeth.  "Not today, Jez."  Gone.  No repartee, just gone.  I roll over in bed to feel more than just a pillow.  Nope, gone.  Months pass, until finally I indulge the demon in an act of boredom.

"Jezebeth."

Instantly she appears, in lingerie crafted by idle hands on the edge of Lake Cocytus.

"Yes?"  She inquires, with a monstrous gleam in her eye.

"I'd like to make my first wish."

"I'm listening..."

"I wish to be rich beyond my wildest dreams."  Before she can snap her fingers I interject, "But...".  Her eyes narrow in contempt and hatred.  "Go on", she hisses through clenched teeth.

"I wish to be rich beyond my wildest dreams, with the following stipulations."

Her eyes roll with every sentence, which seem to go on forever.  Hundreds of codicils and bylaws and several demonic sighs of irritation later, my filibuster is complete.

"Are you finished?"

"Yes."

With a diabolical laugh, as if she has found a loophole, she snaps her fingers and winks from my vision.

Weeks go by and my coffers grow full from seemingly windfall fortunes.  Friends and family wonder how I do it. Am I just lucky, or am I doing something illegal?  Neither, I just have a demonic benefactor who signed an airtight contract in haste, which she is undoubtedly regretting.  Until one day, when I receive some startling news during my annual physical.  I have contracted an extremely rare disease not seen in the population in centuries.  The doctor is taken aback by my response to what would normally be unsettling and devastating news.  "That bitch", I mutter to myself, as I storm out of the doctor's office. The receptionist looks over her tortoiseshell glasses with a wry smirk and a devious wink.  "Good day!"  I don't respond to her as I briskly walk out of the office, I slam the car door shut and I can already heel her malevolent trickster aura.  She giggles because she thinks she's gotten me, anticipating my next wish to be good health.  She's wrong.

"Aww, what's wrong, baby?"  She grins.

"Is this you?  Did you bestow this ancient cursed malady on me, you foul creature?"  She doesn't realise the snare she is about to step into.

"Yes, it was I."  I've got her.

"Section 128, article 17, line 4."  As I repay her smirk with one of my own.

Her eyes narrow as I watch her conjure up and consult her copy of the blood oath.  Rage contorts her otherwise pretty face as she reads the words scrawled in blood.  She lets loose a guttural growl and snaps her fingers in defeat.  Disappearing as quickly as she appeared, the rare disease departs with her.

"Hey, where'd you go?"  I summon her back.

"What.  Do.  You.  Want?"  She's not pleased.

"My second wish!"  Insult to injury is my motive.  How often can a mere mortal toy with an omnipotent being, the personification of evil?  It's my turn to have some fun.

"Fine.  What is your second wish?"

"I wish not to be immortal, but to be of perfect health for the next 100 years with no negative aspects of aging."  I then follow my usual laundry list of stipulations, which she reluctantly agrees to.  I peer into her soulless blue eyes and I can see her crafting a plan to finally gain the upper hand.

"Done."  This time there is no laugh, no chiding, only subservience.  She disappears again.

"Jez?"  I summon.

"WHAT?!" She snarls with venom.

"Have a nice day."  She disappears once more.

Years pass.  I have become a client she dreads seeing and her appearances diminish over the years.  In the time since our last encounter I've become wealthy beyond my wildest imagination, have gained a family, have traveled and have become a world renowned philanthropist.  She drops in every year on the day of my second wish with a token of her patience; a "wishday" cake with a number that diminishes with the years left of my respite from death.  Today, the cake has the number one on it.

I have one wish, 365 days and one final ace up my sleeve left.

She visits daily, chiding me, mocking me, debasing me with her forked tongue.  364 days have now passed and there are just a few short, paltry hours left until she comes to collect her due.  It's almost as if she's forgotten about my final wish.

"Jez?"

"Yes?"

"I'm ready to make my final wish."

"Section 2, article 14, line 6."  She grins widely and luxuriantly.

My confusion is palpable as I open my copy of the agreement.  But there it is, the one loophole my demon had planned on.

2.14.6 - Statute Of Limitations
"The statute of limitations for the lifespan of a single wish is 99 years."

I'm dumbfounded.  This plan was airtight.  I've overlooked a bylaw that has my soul cast into the grasp of my century long demonic tormentor.  As her maniacal laughs start to become white noise, I realise I've won.  I counter.

"Section 6 article 6, line..."

She frantically claw through the pages of weathered papyrus until we both utter together... "6".

6.6.6 - Statute Of Limitations Amendment
"If a single wish's lifetime exceeds that of the aforementioned statute of limitations, a provisional wish shall be granted following the completion of the previous wish."

"I'm ready for my final wish", I utter.

"Go ahead.  There is no wish that can save you from eventually becoming mine", she growls with seething, sadistical intent.

"I wish for your freedom from the bowels of hell."

"Impossible, that is not possible.  No mortal can release me from my duties set for by my price of darkness and oblivion.  You must select another wish."

"Section 7, article 7, line 7."

She opens the tattered contract for the final, last time.

7.7.7 -  Inability to Perform at the Request of the Requester
"Should the demon be unable to perform the request of the mortal citing inability, the entire contract shall be rendered null and void.  All existing wishes shall be honored."

Furious and defeated she snaps her fingers, but... she doesn’t disappear.  She snaps her fingers again, and again, nothing.  "What have you done to me?!"  Her eyes are no longer jet black, her claws are gone, her powers to defile are no more.  She is free, and powerless.

"What... what do I do now?"  She whispers as she buries her face in her hands.

I pick up her face and star deeply into her once again piercing blue eyes.  "I suggest you do as I did, child, when I was freed by a mortal so many years ago.  Find yourself a demon that has less patience than you do."

Anti-social

Simple pleasures

Got a new toy in the mail today.  Very simple.  Something I haven't used for literally decades.

Yep, a no-shit pencil sharpener for shop woodworking duties.  I'm sure people of a mature age remember these - spring powered pencil holder and a proper helical burr cutter that grinds the pencil to shape, not tears at it with an increasingly blunt knife.

How happy am I?  Over the moon happy.  It's just nice when such simple things work right.  The smell of the pencil shavings alone is worth it, let alone having a decent sharp pencil to do work with.

Dyson chargers

I decommissioned an old Dyson dustbuster a couple of weeks ago due to it being well and truly dickered, but since we have two more of the things, I thought I might be able to hang onto the charger brick as a spare.  Right?

Of course, I'm not silly enough to try this without checking the voltages and polarity, even though the connector just looks like a standard DC barrel job, because it's not easy to get the magic smoke back in if it escapes.  And these things are expensive.

Let's address ourselves to the back of the brick first.

Um, WTF?  Two voltages?  Centre pin positive, but with a ring positive, and a shell negative?

Sneaky bastards.... yes, the barrel has an inner liner as well, separate from the centre pin.  I don't know if the actual appliance had dual-voltage charger feeds or not as it is long since very expensive landfill, or maybe the same charger was used for multiple appliances and they just arranged socket connectivity for each as required.

Regardless, both of the newer units I have use a more conventional 2-pole barrel plug without the fancy barrel liner contact, and only the older of the two runs on the same voltage.... but of course, on the one supplied by the barrel liner in this charger, not the pin.  And the newer unit needs 36VDC, which probably explains why it runs like your personal handheld typhoon when on the holy-shit setting.

So ultimately, this unit too is landfill.  With eBay fees, Paypal fees and Australia Post fuckery being what it is, it's not even worth the trouble to sell for what anyone would pay for it.

Uncertainty

Heisenburg and Schrodinger are driving down the road when they get pulled over by a cop.

The cop says to Heisenburg, who is driving, "do you know how fast you were going?"  Heisenburg replies "no, but I know exactly where I am!"  The cop says "well, this is a 60 zone and you were doing 75."  Heisenburg says "oh great, now we're lost!"

The cop then goes to the back of the car, opens the boot and says "Do you guys know you have a dead cat back here?"  To which Schrodinger replies "we do now, asshole!"

Anti social

Country holiday

Currently staying up in the Victorian highlands for a few days away.

This is the only form of log on I'm doing this week:






The locals obviously have strong feelings about foxes though.