Whirlpools

Why would someone name an appliance company Whirlpool? Don’t whirlpools suck things down? Things like ships. And sailors. The Corryvreckan whirlpool between the Jura and Scarba islands of Scotland is the third-largest whirlpool in the world. It’s believed to be unnavigable. Why anyone would consider navigating such a phenomenal whirl of water is beyond me. There’s a smaller whirlpool nearby called Little Corryvreckan. Divers who explore the area consider it as one of the most dangerous dives in Britain. And why? Why would you do that? I’ve done some imprudent things in my life (like choosing to become a writer in a postliterate age), but not that. Our refrigerator is a Whirlpool. Not literally, of course, or I’d be struggling to stay afloat every morning I went for some juice & eggs & a column of whirling water came roaring out. Not that that hasn’t happened a few times already. But that wasn’t a whirlpool that was just life being weird & awful. Old Sow is one of the largest whirlpools in the Western Hemisphere. Situated off the shores of Deer Island in New Brunswick, it’s formed by an extreme tidal range of opposing currents coming together, accelerated by the unusual seafloor topography of the area. The whirlpool makes a pig-like noise. Maybe it’s trying to converse. Imagine having a conversation with a whirlpool. You’d get lost. You’d get sucked into pig noises and strange paraphrases & even odder analogies.  I’ve been in conversations like that. You get sucked down & down & down & then you get up heavily & struggle to get your coat & get the fuck out of there. I once had a whirlpool of hair on the back of my head. I called it Implication, because of the implications, & now that area is bald. Has anyone fallen into a Whirlpool washer & lived to tell the tale? And what kind of an oxymoronic machine is a Whirlpool dryer? Whoever heard of a dry whirlpool? Or a whirlpool you carry around in a basket & pour out on a bed to fold? Whirlpools don’t like being folded. You can find yourself suddenly sucked into a shirt & lose all sense of time & place & go out unwittingly into public with a pair of underwear on your head.