Mid-Century Simple (by John)

Our apartments in Escazú came equipped with a mystery device shown in the photo below. I have no idea what it is but when I plugged it in and turned it on I discovered a very pleasant side effect. It expelled a broad exhaust plume that provided a cooling effect. I assume that the gas expelled is non-toxic because there is no warning label (and in Costa Rica they apply labels quite liberally as Cindy mentioned in a previous blog). Just to be safe I opened the sliding doors to our balcony deck to allow the exhaust a way out of our apartment. By playing with its controls I discovered a setting that dispersed the exhaust in a back and forth motion across the room. There was something quite comfortable about the sensation produced. For some reason it took me back to my childhood and afternoons at my grandmother’s house.

I shouted into the device to see if, like most devices, it would respond to voice commands. A funny thing happened. The device changed my voice making it sound like a robotic munchkin from “The Wizard of Oz.” Perhaps I had just discovered what the device was, a voice “disguiser.” Nonetheless, it amused me in a childlike way so I continued speaking into it until Cindy decided it was time for me to stop. Repeatedly singing, “We represent the Lollipop Guild,” into the device apparently tickled my funny bone more than hers. Once again I was transported back to a simpler time in my childhood, a time when a family member might ever-so-nicely suggest that I stop doing something annoying such as hitting tennis balls against the garage door.

It was a warm day but the cool exhaust plume expelled combined with the open doors to the outside seemed to freshen the environment inside the apartment. The effect was so pleasing that we have been turning on the device and opening our doors and windows every day since making the initial discovery.

One of the side effects of opening the doors and windows is that exterior sounds were now able to find their way into the interior of our apartment. We have spent the better part of 50 years trying to keep exterior sounds on the outside of our abode but we decided to embrace a new concept now. We live in a city so why not enjoy the sounds of the city every now and then? We now hear children playing in the pool, traffic noises and, during rush hour, the horn honking that is so popular here. On more than one occasion I’ve heard call and response behavior. A motorcycle will beep, “shave and a haircut,” and another random vehicle in traffic may respond by tooting “two bits.” I’ve heard the call go unanswered on at least one occasion. The unanswered call leaves me somewhat unsettled for the remainder of the evening, as if there is unfinished business.

On Thursday, our cleaning day, we made another discovery. We noticed a light coating of particles on several of the horizontal surfaces in the apartment. It was particularly noticeable on our glass coffee table. As we proceeded with our routine dusting of the furniture we were filled with a sense of accomplishment. It’s difficult to explain but somehow dusting was more satisfying when there was something to remove from surfaces. I did some quick research to see if there was documented precedence for this sensation. The only evidence I found was circa 1947 when Alfred swept up Santa’s torn paper in “Miracle on 34th Street.” Regardless, the end state after our dusting was noticeably different from the beginning state. We may have inadvertently introduced a delta into the dusting equation.

Cindy and I were discussing these various phenomena while washing dishes by hand the other night (albeit quite modern, our apartment does not have a dishwasher, unless you count us). We considered the spinning and oscillating voice changer. We considered open windows and air conditioning turned off. We considered outdoors noise and even “Shave and Haircut” which had not been a thing north of the tropics for many decades. We conjectured that Costa Rica may have allowed us to rekindle a state of mind many people never have and never will experience – our childhoods in the 1960’s.