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My first commercial act in the nation's capital was to buy a hair dryer. Not for my hair, which had long ago grown brittle with the harsh Vietnamese shampoos, but rather for my precious cameras, in sore need of drying out. And for my clothes, so long denied access to the sun that they had grown a greenish copper patina. And, to be honest, for my bed. I had developed a fantasy in the Central Highlands, and the endless progression of cheerless guesthouse rooms and steadily worsening weather had turned it into an obsession. I wanted, just once, to crawl into a warm, dry bed.
I turned the dryer first on my clothes, slipping a damp sock over the nozzle and setting the heat on low. Within seconds it had become a flame thrower, shooting burning bits of rayon in all directions before committing suicide by melting its internal organs. The second dryer refused to run at all, beyond a short demonstration at the electrical stall. The third one purred along contentedly, provided I used only the no-heat setting, but by this time I was far too paranoid to point it at anything of value.
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