The other day, in the small back room which is lined with old shelving and which we use mainly as a storage room, I set up the ironing board and iron and afterward neglected to take it down. It is a small room and so yesterday Marty and I were sitting in it talking, which meant sitting under the ironing board. I looked at the ironing board from below and remarked on how it was funny, with all our technological advances, that the fundamental design of the ironing board had remained unchanged. This reminded Marty of a comic routine on the ironing board based on the same idea, its tendency to maim, and how the comic had speculated on if the design of the ironing board would ever have been approved today, this board upon two not very steady legs upon which would be set a big sharp piece of metal.
Today I went in to the back room and, crawling around under the ironing board, I remembered the conversation on its maiming properties, and thinking that it would be just my luck to have an accident with the iron, accidentally toppling it on me, I reached up to move the iron…only to burn my hand because I’d not realized Marty had just been back there ironing.
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