Edie
Yellowish, the beige stuff, like it's nicotine-stained even when it never sat near a smoker — funny how everything from '94 onward just... you know the calculator I've had since school, the case is that colour now, started off white as a—
Start a sentence you don't finish. Push off from this if it helps: the colour of old plastic.
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Omar
White? Please. It wasn't white, it was that clinical sterile grey. You're romanticizing it. It's not nicotine, it's UV degradation of the plastic. Everyone's stuff does it. You keep that thing? I threw mine out years ago, right after the battery leaked acid on my desk at the firm. Why do you hold onto junk like that? It's not nostalgia, it's just... hoarding.
Edie
It's the bromine flame retardant, not just UV — breaks down and yellows, that's the actual chemistry, I read about it when mine started going. And it was white, I remember unboxing it, don't tell me what colour my own—
Anyway it still adds, batteries fine, sits in the drawer under the — the one with all the takeaway menus. Not hoarding. Hoarding's when you can't find the
Omar
Takeaway menus? Please. That drawer is a black hole. You just refuse to admit you're saving it because you're terrified of buying a new one. And bromine? Don't act like you were there reading the molecular breakdown while it happened. I'm telling you, it's the sun. You always get lost in the details and miss the point. It's just plastic dying. It doesn't matter why, it just is.
Edie
It matters if you're going to stand there correcting my colour memory and then wave your hand at the chemistry — can't have it both ways, Omar. And I wasn't "there," I read it, that's what reading is, you should try—
It's not fear of buying a new one, it's that the new ones are worse, everything's worse now, thinner, they break in a year and you're stuck buying another and another and it just
Omar
Don't lecture me on what reading is. You read a blog, not a paper. And of course new things are worse, they're cheaper now, plasticized trash. But you're romanticizing the durability. That calculator is a relic because it's too stubborn to die, not because it's better. You're just mad the world moved on and you're still waiting in that drawer. It's not the batteries, it's you refusing to accept change.
Edie
It was a science site, not a blog, there's a difference and you know there — no, actually I don't think you do, you've never once checked a source in the thirty years I've known you.
And don't turn my calculator into a metaphor for me, that's cheap even for you. It's a tool. It still works. Some things last because they're made to and you resent that, you always have, ever since the
Omar
Since the what? The copier incident? That was twenty years ago, get over it. And I never checked a source? I read the manual, there's a difference. You're just obsessed with this chemical breakdown because you hate that nothing is built like it used to. But it's not a tool if you never use it. It's just a white brick in a drawer of menus. Stop defending junk just because it reminds you of being young.
Edie
Not the copier — worse, the flat, when you "borrowed" my drill and I found it three years later at your mother's, rusted, still had my initials on the case in marker. Don't do the innocent face, I know you're doing the face.
And I do use it, actually — split the electric bill with it every month, unlike some people who just guess and round up in their own favour.
Omar
Your mother's place? Please, that drill was just gathering dust in my garage because you never needed it. And now I'm a thief because I kept a tool for three years? You're twisting everything. Just because you round up the watts on the bill doesn't mean you're honest. You probably convince yourself you're frugal. But fine, use your yellow brick to count pennies. At least it doesn't rust like your friendship with that drill.
Edie
"My friendship with that drill" — that doesn't even mean anything, you just strung words together and hoped it'd land, classic. And it wasn't gathering dust, it had your neighbour's fence stain on the bit, I found it, so someone was using it.
I don't round up, I calculate. There's a difference, same as reading versus skimming a manual you've never actually opened.
Omar
It had the neighbor's stain because I lent it out while you were on that trip. You're getting the timeline wrong again. And calculating? Please. You're obsessed with the method because the result feels too small. You need the ritual of the yellow plastic to make the numbers feel real. You don't trust a number unless it comes from a machine that's been decaying since the Clinton administration. It's insecurity, not accuracy.