Sarah Gibbard Cook
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Gremlin Season

11/30/2020

2 Comments

 
A few days ago, the microwave beeped erratically for no known reason. A printer quit working. Plumbing fixtures began to malfunction. The button to enter a new blog post vanished temporarily from my website. A year since I wrote “Things keep breaking,” the gremlins are at it again.

Gremlins came to human attention shortly after World War I, when British pilots described their sabotage of aircraft engines and flight controls. The Spectator reported in the 1920s, "The old Royal Naval Air Service in 1917 and the newly constituted Royal Air Force in 1918 appear to have detected the existence of a horde of mysterious and malicious sprites whose whole purpose in life was…to bring about as many as possible of the inexplicable mishaps which, in those days as now, trouble an airman’s life."

Are the gremlins more active in this darkening season, or do they just throw me farther off balance? Soon tree lights and carols will revive my resilience. Days will start to lengthen. Perhaps the gremlins will tire of their antics, until this time next year.
2 Comments
Rebecca link
11/30/2020 01:24:10 pm

I've experienced the gremlins or poltergeist as well. Either my computer or phone will not access my website (fortunately not both). Perhaps my feathers are more ruffled this time of year, causing computer malfunctions.

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Sarah Cook link
11/30/2020 02:54:01 pm

Rebecca, oh, how I identify! Glad you can get to your website one way or another. And now a big plastic whirligig that fell off inside the dishwasher is sitting on the countertop and the dishes get done by hand till we figure out what to do about it. Ruffled feathers is a good image for the gremlins' seasonal effect.

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    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

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