Difficult Music

I took Bruce Robinson's Paranoia in the Launderette on the bus with me today. I read it twice; it's only a wee book. The climactic scene contains one of the classic lines of all time: "I'm not in here to hurt anyone. I'm a professional writer."

What makes me paranoid in the launderette is the extractor—that rattling aluminum centrifuge. I don't trust it. Right when it reaches maximum RPMs, I'm afraid it's going to fly apart and pierce me with shrapnel. How well is it maintained? Will that kill switch really work? Does the 50 cents I feed it save me more than 50 cents of drying time, and is that worth the apparent danger?