THE JOYS OF TECHNOLOGY?

Despite the chaos rampant on this planet – enough to make even the most manic depressed, the past thirty or so years have created technologies extraordinaire which have made some of the more tedious aspects of life effortless, faster than ever imaginable and often more fun than play-dough my kind of technology. Most of these advances have been a snap for those born with the technology gene meaning all born after 1950s. Others, like me, have required healthy doses of courage and interminable patience to psych them out. However, ultimately, they have been worth every bit of agita.

In the child’s play camp falls the TV remote. A miracle. A break-through product if ever there was one. My personal favorite buttons are “mute,” and those little arrows that change channels and “off.” Lolling in my bed with my brain on hold, I delight in zapping the obnoxious and inane – programs and/or commercials – and hopping from one channel to another in search of a program geared to those above twelve. This is not as simple as it sounds. Mastering this gadget took merely minutes to master earning its inventor accolades from me known by all my friends as a tough sell.

Then take the VCR/DVD. Initially, neither anyone I knew over age fifty nor I could father its operation. My kids or course worked the damned contraptions in five minutes. Once the lack of confidence abated, I was able to pre-record. Rah!  However, this trick eluded some friends, intelligent people all, who after years of honest effort and endless explanations are still at a loss as to how to program now - or ever. I really can’t blame them since the manufacturers learned they needed a better mousetrap and thus created On Screen Programing -- much easier than reading those incomprehensible instructions.

The self-cleaning oven is another of my favorites. Whoever invented this had cleaned an oven a few times in his/her life with those smelly, skin-ruining ingredients plus too much muscle scrubbing with steel wool.  So now, all one has to do is lock the oven door, turn on the switch and wow, it cleans itself.

The electric screwdriver is anther of my pet toys. In the olden days I often needed far more developed biceps and greater dexterity to imbed or extricate a screw. Now I can switch from a regular head to a Philips in about three seconds and, with a flick of my finger, I can accomplish this chore in seconds. It’s particularly effective on screws with twenty of thirty years of paint in those little grooves as I discovered in the vent covers in my bathroom. 

The other technological joy requiring not a moment’s thought is the icemaker. Why hadn’t they though of that decades ago when I ran out of ice in ninety-degree weather and had to wait hours for the water in those trays to freeze? I’ve had an icemaker for year and still chuckle when I hear it “laying” cubes.

Food processors, mini and maxi, are other indispensable additions to my hi-tech arsenal.  Remember the arduous chore of chopping onions, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, veggies, fruits, name it.  History.

How did we ever live without Crazy Glue? Five seconds and whatever you clumsily broke is repaired including your fingers stuck together. And let’s not forget the fact that it’s heaven for broken nails. 

Then there’s the copier., fax machines (nearly obsolete today), and of course the computer.  How quickly we forget the arduous task of writing in the olden days – say the 1970s when carbon paper and whiteout were a must. Once I conquered the irrational terror of merely turning the computer on, I fell in love. Spell check, cut and paste extraordinary. However, it doesn’t like passive sentences and single dashes. But those are a snap to fix. I just tell it I’m the writer and bug off.

The modern telephone. Pure genius. No more holes for dialing, hold buttons, programed phone numbers, conference calls, cell phone and the one I most adore, the speaker. I never call anyone using it and I resent being spoken to on it by others but when calling one of those numbers answered by a mechanical voice telling me to press 1. 12. 6. ad nauseum, the speaker is a major plus. So when you’re on hold for what seems like forever, you can read all your junk mail, straighten up your desk, empty the dishwasher, etc. The other day I was on hold for tech support for twenty-four minutes and forty-two second. Obviously, I put a clock on  it.

There seem to be new gadgets daily that simply do not interest me. After all, I wasn’t born with the computer gene and my brain will hold only so much. It’s already filled.