Machine disorder is not a pretty sight

I punish machines that don't work by wanting to destroy them beyond recognition.I must have MDD, or Machine Destructive Disorder, and may have inherited a mutant gene from my father. The man was compassionate and patient but hated nonworking machines and verbally abused them unmercifully, until they appeared to wince from his onslaught.I've been told to seek help — maybe support groups — but I want to kick MDD on my own. It's hard because I live with the dread memory of my father's most legendary outburst.He maintained a pristine vegetable garden with only a hoe and a hand-pushed little cultivator. He'd don coveralls and "sweat out the poisons" as he described his physical activity. After he worked a while, I'd watch him sharpen the hoe with a file, then light a Lucky Strike, admiring his manual labor. He was a happy man in his garden, until the day I saw the granddaddy of his machine-directed tirades, and I still quake at the memory.Our neighbor Roy became the proud owner of a self-propelled garden tiller. The man had no right to be near machines by 6 p.m. on most days: Roy always downed several Schlitz beers by then.Core Technologies Used for Virtual Machine Backup.I watched as the man erratically tried to guide the shiny tiller to my father's garden, the exhaust snorting with Roy bucking and weaving behind, heading out of control for Dad's vegetables.
"Here, Lee," Roy shouted above the roar. "Try this out. Top o' the line."Time stood still. Roy was digging a furrow across his own lawn. My father dropped his hoe and dashed in his baggy coveralls to the machine, but not before a row of peas and half the rhubarb had been destroyed. Beets lay in waiting."Turn the thing off," my father yelled, but Roy was too busy holding on. Eventually it stopped. Divine intervention, no doubt. Dad talked calmly and gently."Oh, it's all right, Roy. Didn't hurt much." Things like that.But in the kitchen the storm struck my mother and me with flashing, blue thunder bolts, language we could only dream of, all directed at the machine, not Roy.My father thought the tiller should be consigned to other places, namely anatomical locations, and he spoke of the machine as though it had illegitimate ancestry.Today I wish I possessed Dad's spirit with machines, but mine has manifested violently. The other day when my printer stopped working, a statue of Stan Musial flew across the room, knocking his cap cock-eyed, and I still can't find his bat.My wife calmly fixed the printer. She said I should stop throwing things. She's right. Mere cursing might have shamed that printer into submission. And Stan the Man would still be holding his bat.