Where No Man Has Gone Before

It's Spring and time to clean. I spent the weekend cleaning out gutters and putting up guards (thank you, lassie!), then I "power-washed" the siding, windows and front door. There are no more spiderwebs dangling from the eaves. Strangely, the key also no longer works in the lock; I'm pretty sure someone tried to jimmy it that very night.

Jody says I'm being unreasonable and that it's likely due to the powerwashing. Playing the Three Possibilities game, I've come up with alternate thoughts on the topic:

(1. Someone tried to jimmy the lock)
2. Locks don't like having water and all manner of foreign debris power-shot up their keyhole.
3. It never worked, I was only imagining it.

The rules of this game are simple - when coming to a conclusion that causes you a degree of dismay or anxiety, come up with two other possibilities that are equally as likely and less anxiety-ridden. Then determine the probability of each and go with the one that has the highest probability. In this case, #3 - it never worked, I was only imagining it.

(Jody is going to WD40 it this weekend. This may be the wrong thing to do to a keyhole, but clearly so was shooting it full of hosewater.)

I am spring cleaning my brain, too - Please Excuse The Mess. I started by taking a mental inventory and quickly discovered I have a lot of junk. I've taken at least three loads to the curb already, and I expect to take another 8 or 10 before the process is complete and my mental house is back in order.

I even discovered some rooms I didn't know I had. I found a few that were completely empty, one that is octagonal-shaped with a lovely bay window overlooking a well-tended rose garden. I've never been in this room before. When I entered the room, it was filled with sunshine and the window seat had a plaque that read "Vicky," and for a moment I forgot I was supposed to be cleaning house and I nearly sat down to enjoy the sun streaming in the window. I will be returning to that room a lot.

More startling than that, though, was a room I found down a long, dark corridor. The room was smallish and had a sign above the door that, when lit, read "Test in Progress; DO NOT ENTER."

Ok, first, it's MY brain; I enter where I wish, although some rooms I have absolutely no desire to ever be in again. But a test room? How could I have a test room and not know it?

Since there appeared to be no test in progress, I entered the room. It was smallish, maybe 10x15 with a wall sectioning off a portion of the room, like an observation booth with a glass window. In the larger section, a table was set squarely in the middle of the room and on the table was the mousetrap game I played with for hours as a child.

I know it was the same game because the game came with two parts that did not work, key parts mind you, and my dad built wooden replacements that I loved more than the game itself. (My dad can build anything...anything. The parts of me that are whole and right, my dad built those to replace the defective parts that came with me when I was born or those that broke shortly thereafter.)

On the wall hung a sign that had four rules:
1. Please maintain complete silence when test in progress.
2. No jumping at any time.
3. No food or drink allowed.
4. No peeing on the carpet.

The first rule made perfect sense, mice do scare easily.

The second as well, the game is an intricate contraption and the final two pieces are a pole with a cage balanced precariously at the top. When played correctly, it is a well-timed jiggle that causes the cage to become unbalanced and begin its ratcheted fall to trap the mouse below.

The third is a no-brainer; what mouse would want a piece of plastic cheese if there was a vending machine in the corner that dispensed Laura Scudders potato chips?

The fourth was odd, though, cuz there was no carpet.

I wondered, as you might, what on earth took place in this room and how could I not know about it in my own brain! There were no clues in the main portion of this test environment, so I decided to check out the observation room. It had this soundboard sort of thing with lots of switches and dials and I thought it might provide a clue or two to the type of test being conducted.

So I walked through the wall (yeah, apparently I am able to noclip in my brain, although passing through the glass made my hair a little static-y), and I sat down at the console and studied the dials and switches and immediately became intrigued with a number of instruments on the board.

There was a dial labeled "The Staircase," a radial that could be turned to one of two stations, UP or DOWN. A series of colorful switches were outlined and catagorized as "Dimmer Switches," and they were labeled from left to right Brick Red, Burnt Sienna, Canary Yellow, Sea Green, Midnight Blue, Indigo and Red Violet.

Another dial read "Notions" and I clicked through its various settings, "half-baked," "silly," "foolish," "radical" and, my personal favorite, "confounded."

There was a gauge labeled "Load Balancing" where the needle appeared stuck at "overload;" I tapped the glass, but the needle did not move. And there was a volume control labeled "Voice" with two settings - "inside" and "out loud." It was set to "inside," and seriously wrapped in duct-taped to prevent it from being switched over to the other.

And lastly, there was a single button that simply said "To push."

Now, while this was all very entertaining and my curiosity was definitely piqued (I really must touch and fiddle with everything, dontcha know?), I was on a mission that day, Spring Cleaning was not getting done while I was twiddling dials. So I stood to leave having determined I would use the door that had suddenly appeared in the wall behind me (previously, there had appeared no way out except the aforementioned noclipping), when I noticed a dusty cardboard box in the corner, one of the kind used to store files and sooper-secret stuff in a government warehouse. And, even though the box was clearly labeled CONFIDENTIAL, I opened it anyway cuz it is MY BRAIN. The box was crammed full of files, and I pulled out the file at the front and it was labeled Test Subject 2408937 - Male - FAIL.

Bingo. The results of the tests performed in the adjoining room with it's mousetrap game, set of rules and no carpet.

I gotta tell you, I was a little scared. First, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to know what sort of bizarre testing had occurred, plus I was getting this strange sort of prickly sensation like I was looking at something I shouldn't and also, I felt like I was being watched. So I slid the file back into the box without opening it, but I lingered just long enough to finger the second file which read Test Subject 2408936 - Male - FAIL, and the one after that which read Test Subject 2408935 - Male - FAIL, and one a ways back that read Test Subject 2289346 - Male - FAIL, and I realized that every file in that box had two things in common...all indicated MALE test subjects, and all were marked FAIL.

And suddenly, I no longer cared about being watched and, while I still had a bit of a bone-chill thing goin' on, I became possessed with an overwhelming need to know; I pulled out the file at the very back, the last file, marked Test Subject 002 - Male - FAIL and I opened the folder and there inside was a picture of my dad.

I stared down at the picture of my father, the man who could build anything, then I tucked the file under my arm, closed the box and carried it from the room to the curb where I left it to be hauled away as refuse. I've already contracted a builder to repurpose the room as a nursery where I will grow hydroponic tomatoes. There will be no more testing without my full knowledge and consent, and I will employ an expert in constructing healthy test environments with adaptable controls and a human interface to help interpret the data.

The folder under my arm? I took it back to the sunny room with the picture window overlooking the well-tended rose garden and I set it on the floor next to the window seat with my name on it, then I curled up on the seat with the sunlight shining on my face, and I took a nap.

What can I say? Spring Cleaning is exhausting.