The placebo mentality in our household
Mar. 1st, 2004 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfSome RL bitching:
I've noticed a certain placebo mentality in my house... i.e. we have a placebo tv: a tiny little box that emits a low humming noise and produces grainy black and white pictures the size of a cigarette box (not exaggerating here). On a good day you may be able to make out the shapes of people moving on the screen, vaguely, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it watching television. Nevertheless my housemates can stare at that little box whole evenings. I can only explain that behaviour as a placebo effect: they *believe* it is a tv, so it works as a tv, for them. I didn't know the placebo effect extended to things like that, but apparently it does.
Anyway, that's just a bizarre little observation. Now for the bitching: today I discovered that someone has replaced our mop with a placebo mop. Or rather, done a placebo repair on our formerly perfectly serviceable mop. For reasons unknown the handle of that cleaning implement has broken in two, and some technical genius (sorry, in case any of my housemates - unlikely, but not impossible! - is reading this... but really. Did you *really* expect that to work???) has tried to fix it by taping a clothes-peg to it with Scotch tape. For bracing, I suppose. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) that repair did not survive my attempt at using the mop tonight to clean the kitchen floor. So I just removed the dangling part of the handle and mopped the floor stooping really low, resulting in back ache.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching about the broken mop. That is, likely, nobody's fault, as we all agreed on buying only stuff that was dirt cheap for our 9 months in Britain. It's no wonder things are beginning to fail all around us now. However, what I don't get is the mentality that tries to fix a mop with Scotch tape. I mean, yeah, if I just want to *look* at the mop, Scotch tape might do the job. But this is not a modern art exhibit, it's a mop that's being used... ! *sigh*
Okay, done bitching. Feel better now.
Back to work. *sigh.*
I've noticed a certain placebo mentality in my house... i.e. we have a placebo tv: a tiny little box that emits a low humming noise and produces grainy black and white pictures the size of a cigarette box (not exaggerating here). On a good day you may be able to make out the shapes of people moving on the screen, vaguely, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it watching television. Nevertheless my housemates can stare at that little box whole evenings. I can only explain that behaviour as a placebo effect: they *believe* it is a tv, so it works as a tv, for them. I didn't know the placebo effect extended to things like that, but apparently it does.
Anyway, that's just a bizarre little observation. Now for the bitching: today I discovered that someone has replaced our mop with a placebo mop. Or rather, done a placebo repair on our formerly perfectly serviceable mop. For reasons unknown the handle of that cleaning implement has broken in two, and some technical genius (sorry, in case any of my housemates - unlikely, but not impossible! - is reading this... but really. Did you *really* expect that to work???) has tried to fix it by taping a clothes-peg to it with Scotch tape. For bracing, I suppose. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) that repair did not survive my attempt at using the mop tonight to clean the kitchen floor. So I just removed the dangling part of the handle and mopped the floor stooping really low, resulting in back ache.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching about the broken mop. That is, likely, nobody's fault, as we all agreed on buying only stuff that was dirt cheap for our 9 months in Britain. It's no wonder things are beginning to fail all around us now. However, what I don't get is the mentality that tries to fix a mop with Scotch tape. I mean, yeah, if I just want to *look* at the mop, Scotch tape might do the job. But this is not a modern art exhibit, it's a mop that's being used... ! *sigh*
Okay, done bitching. Feel better now.
Back to work. *sigh.*
