New Generation Viruses

Nowadays we need to be careful. Anything that works on a battery or that connects to electricity can be attacked by viruses. Things sure have changed. A virus earlier meant something that happened to living beings – plants, people and animals - but now it can happen to non living things as well.

Ranjeet our cook is convinced that our microwave now has a virus. The darn thing has cracked three of our glass platters in the past week alone. Very mysterious. The wife says these platters were used in the microwave hundreds of times before – and now – beep beep – whirr – CRAA-ACK – beep, seems that the new virus in the microwave has razor sharp karate skills.

The microwave sits on the counter right next to the toaster – and its likely the toaster has been infected too. This particular model has a dial which you turn to select how light or dark you want your toast. That virus turns the dial to Maximum Dark by itself. Very strange. I can now eat half of my toast in one bite by collecting the black crumbs in a soup spoon.

These two viruses are no doubt perplexing. But the most sinister virus is the one that has afflicted the remote control unit of my satellite receiver. This morning I could not switch on the unit. I thought the batteries were weak, so moved closer – practically touching the remote control to the receiver, but nope, it didn’t work. Upon inspecting the batteries in the battery compartment – I noticed that the batteries were inserted incorrectly – that is - with incorrect polarity. That bloody virus again!

The cook and the kids are very lucky. Their employer / dad (ME!) is very computer savvy. He understands things like viruses. Any other father would never have considered a virus to be the cause, and would likely put forward more traditional theories on why these sort of things happen…