Objects With an Attitude

Sometimes, inanimate objects seem to have a mind of their own. And sometimes, they insist on being as contrary as possible. There seems no other logical conclusion; they're obviously doing this on purpose.

We had a truck which started acting up. It would sometimes rev when it was idling, or unexpectedly die. And when idling or going at slow speeds, it would often hesitate, then suddenly lunge forwards or backwards (depending on what gear it was in). And on occasion, it would die and have to be restarted.

Whenever we took it to a mechanic, however, we had little luck. They would test drive it, and the truck would refuse to show its behavior to them. People would examine the engine, think they had found and fixed the problem, but when we got the truck back, it would still be acting up. We replaced spark plugs, O2 sensors, and I don't even recall what else. We took it to different mechanics. All to no avail. After a while, we began saying that the truck was cursed.

We would buy popcorn makers, where you pour the kernels into the machine and wait for them to pop. My father always operated the popcorn maker, and it seemed that the appliances bonded to him. Whenever someone else in the household used the popcorn maker, it didn't pop well.

When we moved, my friend was living with us for a while. At the time, I didn't have my desktop set up, nor did I have a laptop, so I often used my friend's laptop. During the time I used her computer, it would sometimes glitch or give startup errors. But for whatever reason, it seemed that I had far more trouble with it than my friend ever did. In fact, once my friend had been using her computer for a while with no trouble. I went on it for a brief time, and it glitched and had to be restarted. My friend's computer hates me.

I know nothing about using smartphones, and they know it. Someone will be showing me something on their phone, give the phone to me, and then it will randomly go to another screen. I didn't touch anything on the screen or press any buttons, yet it randomly changes, and I have no idea what I did or how to return to the screen it was previously on.