Can anyone remember the science fiction short story or novel that begins with this line? It has been bugging me for days, but I THINK it might have been in an anthology of award winners (Hugos, maybe?) published in the early 70s. Truly an interesting opening line.
I don’t have time for an extensive search at the moment, but the names Robert Sheckley and Ron Goulart leap to mind as possible authors for a story that starts like that.
“What’s become of Screwloose?” by Ron Goulart
Here’s a google book snippet describing it Foundation - Google Books
and here’s a list of places it was collected:
The story begins, “I was hardly there when the electric dishwasher grabbed me.” After a battle the dishwasher is tricked into rolling off the deck of the beach house and into the Pacific. On the second page, we read, “Out in the ocean I noticed the dishwasher swimming out to sea. Doing a fair Australian crawl with those unexpected arms.”
Our memories always trick us. It wasn’t nominated for any award, either.
Oddly, I did remember the part about the Australian crawl… and I didn’t say that it was an award winner, only that I thought it might have been, because that was generally my source for sci-fi shorts back in the day, Nebula or Hugo yearly anthologies. Thanks again for the memory jolt… obviously due for a revisit.
Reminds me of a line from Soap. After Billy’s teacher attempts to kill the Tate family with a bomb, which ends up detonating in the kitchen, Benson announces, “Dinner is in the oven. The oven is in the swimming pool.”