Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem by Conda Douglas

Author:Conda Douglas [Douglas, Conda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: mystery, murder, cozy, American West, short stories, Idaho
Publisher: Conda V Douglas
Published: 2015-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

Conda’s note:

Although Boise is a techie town, with some major companies such as Hewlett Packard and Micron residing here, technical ability has never rubbed off on me. This story comes from my frustrations with technology. I figured there must be some advantages to the newest technological advances …

Sweet Dreams

When my husband rewired the house and I almost electrocuted myself I decided to kill him. My predicament’s my own fault. I knew my husband was hooked on sleeper programs. I never knew it’d get this bad.

I met Henry when I clerked in a sleeper shop, one of the myriad ones that sprung up all over Boise, a tech-capitol and first adopter of the new technology. I made sure I was always the one to serve him. One thing led to another and we married. Now I know he married me because I knew a lot about the programs. I wish the fool things had never been invented.

I never bought a sleeper program before Henry and I’m never buying one after he’s dead. Henry says they’re the wonder of the western world—learn anything while you sleep. Put on a Swahili language tape at night and in the morning speak Swahili.

Except people, especially people like Henry, can’t accept there’s no real shortcuts in life. I told Henry that the subconscious level where sleep learning works is not long term memory retentive. Planned obsolescence. The programs fade away over two weeks. And they only work with a one-time application.

I told Henry that sleeper programs never create ability where there’s none. Warnings printed on every package of S.P. tell a customer about potential problems. Henry never has read one of those.

There was the warning printed on the Olympic skier program Henry purchased for our winter vacation: “This program requires certain physical aptitude and agility to be effective.”

I told Henry. He ignored me, took the program and his first time on skis hit the “Black Diamond” expert slope in Boise’s nearby ski area Bogus Basin. Fine, if he’d had the body and co-ordination of an Olympic skier. Henry is fifty pounds overweight and falls over while putting his pants on in the morning. He broke a leg on his first, never finished, ski run and we spent our vacation money on hospital bills.

So what if the warnings are printed in a teensy font on the back of sleeper cassettes—you’d think he’d learn. Most people buy lots of programs at first, like any fad. Then they realize the programs don’t change them into different people and then only buy a program for a real need. “Income Tax Preparation” is a steady seller before the April deadline.

This never happened to Henry. He never learns the limitations, never tires of the sleeper programs. He buys every new cassette. The cost doesn’t deter my husband.

“Think of the money we’ll save when I fix it myself,” he always says to me. As if he knew one end of a screwdriver from the other.

Like when he “renovated” our kitchen. He “renovated” it back into the 19th Century and now I wash the dishes by hand and candlelight.

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