Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of Rowenta's.

It's my gift in a way, I break computers by touching them, watches and clocks run slower/faster from my mere pressence, I broke my digital camera on vacation (story forth coming), and now I have broken our Rowenta iron. I have broken a German engineered finely tuned zero to pressed clothes in 3 seconds super iron. It's really sad because I was finally coming to terms with ironing, I had a system and it was wonderful and yeah the people said my clothes were not wrinkled. SG thought the iron was broken a few weeks ago when she was making her apron however at the time the emotional scar that was the loss of my digital camera made me blind to this possibility. All I could think about was the loss of my beloved picture device. This morning the reality of it's broken state finally dawned on me when I tried to iron a pair of pants before going to work. I'm not sure what it was that made me realize it was broken, maybe it was the fact that it was dumping water all over the ironing board however that's not an uncommon state with irons. No I think it was when it started leaking a brownish colored fluid that I realized strange things were amiss in the iron Rowenta. SG always willing to provide me with timeless information looked up at me and said:

SG: "Oh.. you know I had read that you were supposed to turn the temperature control and the steam control all the way off before filling it."

SFB: "Really when were you going to tell me that? Even so it's not like it would ruin it, would it?"

SG: "Actually it said that it would eventually ruin the iron if you did that."

SFB: "Thanks."

See what I mean information right when you need it and not a moment before. I'm starting to suspect the SG might actually be a CIA spy the way she delivers her timely advice and information right after I need it. 0I could have read the instructions but then again reading is something that gets in the way of me breaking things and let me provide you with an example.

Lets take my weed whacker, me and it have had a long standing feud where it refused to work and I refused to let it not work (I refused to let it not work, double negative equal a positive, right I think that made sense). For the last couple of years I would pull it's cord hoping that all things were aligned, Houston had cleared me for launch and that no clouds would obstruct my ignition. Sometimes the weed whacker would start annnnnnnnd sometimes it wouldn't start at all. This then would lead me to swearing, blisters (yes blisters while trying to start a weed whacker), and eventually the always trusty but rarely effective drop kick. No joke, I actually dropped kicked this thing like an NFL punter on game day trying to get the winning field goal with 2 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The weed whacker would go into a tight spiral fly four feet and land in the grass in front of me. Feeling much better knowing that I had once again shown it who was the master and who was the tool I bent down and started it. And yes it did start, it starts or else it gets the foot again. Two months ago with another grass mowing season fast approaching I decided to have it overhauled in the vain hope that by doing this it might actually work this year otherwise shallow grave along some unknown country road. I called my local mower place I found out that they don't service it but someone across town might. At this point things are looking less convenient, it's one thing to go a half a mile away and have them look at it, it's entirely another if I have to actually make a conscious effort to do this. I called my eternal crutch, my little grey man, my Asgard ally (Stargate, why most you infect me so) the father-in-law to get his spin on this whole weed whacker feud. His advice was to prime it, put it on choke, pull the cord and repeat until starting. It was only after getting off the phone and trying to start it again that it dawned on me that on the handle right in front of my hand was very simple and very well written instructions on how to start it.

• Step 1: Prime weed whacker 10 times or until there is fuel in the bulb.
  
• Step 2: Set the weed whacker to choke (position A) and (here's the key part that I was never doing) hold the trigger down while pulling the starter cord. Do this five a maximum of times.
  
• Step 3: If the whacker does not start switch whacker to semi choke position and
  again hold the trigger down while pulling the starter cord a maximum of three times.
  
• Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 until whacker starts.
  

The short short version of this story is that there were instructions on how to start it right in fron of my face for two years and I never read them. So for two years I was bruising my toes kicking this poor weed whacker around the yard in the hopes that a swift kick in it's wacker's ass would make it start. I have nothing to say for myself, logic wasn't in this, I made it personal and when I make things personal all bets are off, the brain shuts down and all I can do is say "Hulk smash, Hulk kill!". So the fact that I destroyed an iron and the fact that SG didn't tell me didn't really matter I would have most likely destroyed it anyway before learning this lesson because that's the only way I seem to learn things. Painfully one bloody step at a time as I attempt to pull my bruised and battered body across a sea of broken glass using nothing but my thumbs. Huzzah.