Tipping Point Came When the Dog Learned Bangladeshi English
When Wal-Mart finally had a blowout sale on its new line of talking refrigerators, the prices were so low that buying one became irresistible.
The refrigerators were bargain basement cheap because children in Bangladesh made them. As a result, the refrigerator spoke an Asian subcontinent English dialect you had to master in order to understand it and give it commands.
After a period of steep learning curve adjustment for both we new owners and the refrigerator (the concept of a Bangladeshi refrigerator caring properly for dairy products was a particular point of contention), daily life settled into a routine. The pros of talking to a refrigerator by using Bangladeshi English generally outweighed the cons.
What we never anticipated was that the dog would learn to turn on the kitchen television and teach herself English by watching afternoon soap operas, Oprah and Jerry Springer. Even a Pulitzer prize-winning science fiction writer could not have imagined that Trixie would then refine her linguistic skills and learn Bangladeshi English by listening to her people argue loudly with the refrigerator each evening.
Let’s just say that a talking dog and a talking refrigerator — in whatever language — are not an ideal combination in a modern American home where the humans are away all day.
Trixie began simply enough with refrigerator commands. She would say, “Open, please”, in Bangladeshi English and the refrigerator would open its door. She would use her jaws to extract the dog food can, lick it surgical suite clean on the floor, order the refrigerator to close its door, and hide the empty can behind the couch.
This gambit went undetected for some time because of human confusion about who had last fed the dog and whether there was a half-eaten can of dog food in the refrigerator or not and the inevitable grousing about how come I was always the one who had to open a new dog food can, and where was the can opener and why did we have a dog in the first place?
Trixie’s tryst with the refrigerator came to an end when she asked it to open its door and discovered the remains of a pot roast sitting in Great Great Grandmother Edna’s crockery pot, hand thrown and fired in the kiln back on the farm in Kentucky during the time of Stonewall Jackson or Jim Beam or maybe even George Washington.
We came home from work and there was the broken pot on the floor, no pot roast to be seen, Trixie in her bed pretending nothing was wrong and the refrigerator loudly humming “God Save the Queen.”
It quickly came down to this: Which one of them would have to go? The dog, or the Bangladeshi refrigerator?
We’re dog lovers, so the decision was easy. The refrigerator knew this and began trying to cut a deal. It promised to refuse any and all commands from Trixie. It offered to learn to speak un-accented English. It suggested that we converse in French. Surely, learning French would be beyond Trixie’s capabilities, the refrigerator suggested.
We stood fast. The refrigerator began to plead. It began to cry.
I offered it a choice: We would disable its voice command and response capability and it would be an ordinary refrigerator blessed with the opportunity to live in our home. Or, it could retain all of its capabilities, but we would put it up for sale on Craig’s List.
In the end, it chose to remain a silent, unresponsive member of the family. Life is back to normal.
Lesson learned? When you walk through the doors of a Wal-Mart, always remember that there is no such thing as an unbelievable bargain. Instead, you always get what you pay for, nothing more, nothing less.