By Alyssa Velazquez
Elm Staff Writer
In a computer’s life, from the very onset of its birth into our everyday lives, it is necessary to conclude its initial installment by plugging its main power cord into an electrically charged outlet. The power plug is the last piece to be fixed in, and in the case of a computer needing to be shut down, it is the first thing to come out.
Talk about disproportional size to level of importance.
Connected or disconnected, the power cord is key for the life of the computer. Its state of operation deciding the activity of the overall central processing unit. Which made me think: if plugging in last and unplugging first is the process of damage control for PCs, could that method of disaster avoidance work when it comes to our relationships? Should women, as the masterminds we are often portrayed to be, really begin to practice “safe” relationships?
Plug in last, pull out first.
This weekend, after having a very stressful week of running around (interjected with Shamrock shakes from McDonalds for the occasional pick-me-up) I decided to go home for my mother’s birthday. On the night of her birthday, when all the guests had left and I had cut myself an additional piece of ice cream cake, my mother dished forth the current relationship status of my closest cousin.
As I cut cake, my mom served me their painful timeline: beginning prior to the fight, continuing to their inevitable breakup, and followed by their hastily patched up relationship. With due courtesy to any relationship retelling my mom saved her personal remarks for the editor’s epilogue.
As I followed along with her narrative I deduced that my mother believed it to be my cousin’s fault that her personal relationship was on the decline, because as the female she had given everything up too easily; and not just sex, but in her mind everything reserved for the life of a married couple.
The sweet flavor of the strawberry ice cream in my mouth had suddenly disappeared, replaced by a taste that strikingly resembled a sour patch watermelon. Since I hadn’t responded to her afterward remarks, she continued to clarify her statements by asserting that every female has a carrot, in which they dangle in front of the male, a carrot that they are to never give up.
My brow must have furrowed, which caused her to continue her train of vegetable based metaphors to include farm animals: comparisons of cows and their milk to females, there was even mention of markets, and a troubling image of men jumping through hoops. I felt as if I was pulling the string on a Fisher price farm animal game and at any moment the arrow was going to point to a chicken for dating and a pig in marriage.
Her logic sounded medieval at best: females keeping the power away from the males just so a relationship will work? If males tried to dangle a carrot in front of our faces I am a hundred percent certain that as a united gender we would be severely offended, walking away from the carrot rather than following it.
So why is it okay for us? Shouldn’t we be striving for equality, rather than carrots and milk production? Or is there a sense of logic hidden on the farm: a logical feminine need of security by holding on to the power and sustaining from plugging in?
Before I went to bed that night I found myself conflicted between new age technology and a traditional rural lifestyle; which one should come first: the computer or the chicken? Should we really sustain from plugging ourselves into a significant other, and take directions from the manual of “safe relationships, “to always be part of a relationship but never on?
In my own personal love life I have found this theory very tempting due to the fact that an individual whom I really like is half way around the world. Becoming too invested in a cross continent relationship seems rather unwise yet, I don’t want to be holding a carrot for the rest of my life or stay “un-buyable at the market.”
Call me idealistic, but I do believe in equality in a relationship. Perhaps that’s where my cousin went wrong and where all women tend to go wrong: we either over or underestimate our source of power in a relationship.
After all, a farm cannot function without its animals and a power cord cannot operate without her computer working along with her.
March 11, 2011
Volume LXXXI Issue 18