We have a new member of the family. He is called Sputnik. He is seven feet tall and has his own bedroom.
Big Seymour finished Sputnik’s bedroom before anyone else’s.
Sputnik has a lot of orifices. More than you might expect. He has the capacity to leak and hiss.
And gurgle.
I just hope he has the capacity to heat water, because in theory, Sputnik is the solution to the Funny Little Bungalow’s “Complete Absence Of Heating” problem. And like everything else, he was purchased on the cheap.
When Sputnik was unearthed from storage recently (since he was acquired well in advance of the roof coming off) he looked OK. Well, he looked terrifying actually, to me at least. What on Earth were we supposed to do with this monstrosity? I wondered, trying not to betray my concerns to Big Seymour, who had just lugged the thing back home like a caveman would a dead deer. He was pleased with himself. But there was no reason to think there was anything wrong with Sputnik just because I didn’t like the way he looked. That would be wrong of me – prejudiced, dare I say. And I won’t be that person. I was going to give Sputnik a chance.
But it did look like one would need a degree in Physics or some other such tantrical art to simply unscrew the knobs on Sputnik’s body and that is why I was scared. I don’t have such a degree, and neither does Big Seymour.
So I did the only thing I could and left Big Seymour to it. Two hours later, he trudged down the garden to find me, with his head down and his shoulders slumped, huffing and puffing with resignation, and dejectedly declaring: “Well that’s it. The bloke well and truly stitched me up there. The bloody thing’s had it.”
Sputnik was leaking, it seemed. And not from one compartment, but from two. For all we knew, it could have been like the Titanic in there, with all the watertight compartments compromised. When Big Seymour pumped water in, Sputnik pissed it out. Please excuse my vulgarity, but this was the tone of the moment. We had a pile of scrap metal on our drive we’d paid £1400 for, and no working water tank.
We were fed up.
I did the only thing I could in the situation and sat very quietly and waited for the storm to be over. I was impressed, though, when Big Seymour calmly announced he was going to get a beer from the fridge – alcohol is a useful tool in the main – and then he stomped back up the garden to bash Sputnik to smithereens.
After five minutes, I thought I should show some support, and I too wandered up the garden and lurked tentatively next to Big Seymour, who was by now standing on a gate pointing a torch into the depths of Sputnik’s cavities, muttering to himself and processing information. Satisfied that he didn’t appear to have lost all hope, I slunk off again. I was going to need to prepare myself if I was to try to tackle the eBay seller after all this time about his shoddy sale.
But lo and behold! Whilst a degree in water tanks might have been useful, Big Seymour seemed to work it all out without one, and realised he had been misunderstanding the inner layout of old Sputnik’s body. He was not leaking! He was not kaput! He simply worked THE OTHER WAY ROUND!
I nodded and sighed – this was all good news, but the actual explanation I was being given made no sense to me. I am not that clever. All I know is that Sputnik is now installed in his bedroom with even more pipes and wires rammed into his orifices. He looks happy enough, and he isn’t currently incontinent.
I can’t help but feel a little bit nervous, though. We haven’t actually got him plumbed and plugged in yet. Sputnik could still surprise us. But for now, he is reprieved, and he is welcome to live in The Funny Little Bungalow.
Even if we can’t.
He’d better bloody appreciate what a privilege that is.
(By the way, is anthropomorphism a sign of madness..)
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