Everything Has Legs

Not only animals can lope about!

Everything has legs,

useful, but often concealed;

static, but still capable of rapid movement;

unthinking, yet able to plan and execute.

For instance:

Cellphones

Never turn your back on a cellphone. 

Such a gesture will quickly be detected,

triggering unseen limbs to instant action.

Electronic sensors will seek out places of hiding

known only to the device.

Without being observed,

the malevolent little creature will hide in a nearby collection 

of computer-driven devices,

or seek out the darkest corner of your current location.

If autonomous features are available to this silicone snake-in-the-grass,

it will modify its own settings to make itself totally unresponsive,

and leave you utterly abandoned, 

perhaps in an unknown neighborhood, 

without fuel for your car, 

surrounded by unfamiliar structures

and unknown inhabitants who themselves

have been abandoned by their disloyal communicators. 

Yet another instance of uncooperative technology:

The Coat Hanger.

Surprisingly strong, ubiquitous, a denizen of every household,

an ancient form of “helper” device,

embodying no electronic content at all,

yet capable of causing wholly unexpected and endless frustration.

They normally live in closet spaces, some holding clothing, others bare and apparently available. 

Somehow these circuitless, detectorless, 

brainless creatures from our distant past know when they are needed, 

and respond in most unpleasant ways.

Having been observed in an available state, 

they deploy hitherto unseen appendages and move silently,

quickly to other more distant locations.  

They are also known to burrow into piles of clothing, 

and, if left alone on a large flat surface such as a bed, 

organize themselves into hideous tangles 

which can reach the complexity of the legendary Gordian Knot. 

It is said that Alexander the Great himself, 

upon encountering such a mess of metal and plastic,

refused to attempt its disentanglement.

Reduced to mumbling impotence,

he was heard by bystanders to observe in his frustration “…but they haven’t even been invented yet!”   

Shortly thereafter he died after tripping on a hanger 

left on the floor of his command tent by a careless servant.

There are many more amazing facts unknown 

to even the best-informed scientists.

Next time we bring you unprovable facts about 

computer detection of user identity and 

how machines  determine 

which problem is most disturbing to the person at the keyboard 

and how they then implement these problems….

And for your own safety, remember –

Everything has legs!

© George Phillips, 2016

Decorative lamp shaped from old wire coat hangers
Photo from Wikimedia Commons