By Any Other Name

Michelle died today. At least I think she’s dead. I’ll probably plug her in and try again tomorrow morning, just in case she spontaneously resurrected while I was at work.

Hairdryers have a way of doing that.

Part of me was relieved at Michelle’s demise. After all, she originally belonged to my former live-in, who left her behind when he moved out.

I’m not sure why.

Perhaps it was because most of his hair had already moved out, or maybe he thought he’d use her as an Easter egg — a way to re-engage later. Likely he just forgot about her.

I named her Michelle after his previous girlfriend. Michelle had bought it for him when his wife kicked him out and he decided to move into a remote shack in the mountains.

His coatrack I named Debbie, a gift from a former lover who he met not long after he’d moved into his last apartment. His futon I named Marilyn after asking him about a rumor, though I sensed he’d never told me the full story.

I just thought it only appropriate that if we were to live together, we should all be on first name terms.

Then one day, he popped to the store and forgot to close his laptop, so I read his email. I discovered that Michelle, Debbie, and Marilyn had actually overlapped.

I also discovered that his laptop was named Janet.

About six months after he’d moved into my home, he introduced me to Wendy.

Wendy was a coffee mug he’d recently been given by a “just good friend” he’d met while I was in Amsterdam on business.

Alas, two weeks later, I accidentally broke Wendy while unloading the dishwasher. The kind of break that results in just enough little pieces to deter him from reaching for the glue.

Shortly after Wendy’s untimely exit, Claire entered our lives. Claire was a bongo drum given to him by another “just good friend” he’d met at a drumming circle while I was in England visiting sick family.

I put my foot down with Claire. I had never agreed to, nor was there any room in my life for a drum. It was her or me. For a couple of weeks, he hid Claire in the garage, but finally he gave her to a friend. The friend moved away a few months later, and took Claire out of our lives forever.

By the time he brought Joann into my home, I was consulting Janet at every opportunity.

Joann was a whiteboard he’d been given by his new female “just business partner” who he’d met while I was at a conference in Paris.

The two of them were going to build an online startup in my family room. While I was at work earning the money I needed to run my busy and ever-growing household.

At first, Joann was full of flow charts and wireframes and investment targets, but soon the numbers turned to doodles and emoticons and lists of happy hour options.

When Janet revealed plans for a weekend “just business” retreat at the beach, I kicked him out. He took Joann and Marilyn and Janet with him, but left me to sort out the rest.

I donated Debbie to a friend who needed a sturdy coatrack for a small office. But there was something about Michelle I couldn’t simply discard.

Like me, she had been dependable and loyal, yet used and abandoned. Plus, she was the longest-lasting hairdryer I’d ever owned. Even longer than the jet engine model full of bells and whistles and ionic stabilizers that my ex-husband once gave me.

But I always knew that one day Michelle would pass on, and now it’s time I bought my own hairdryer.

I think I’ll call it Frank. Frank seems such a reliable and trustworthy name for a hairdryer. Free from emotional baggage and ready for a new era of good hair days.

And after all, I’ve never dated a Frank before.

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