Gadjets - essay

While we are waiting for the coming disaster, and nothing much is happening that we are hearing about, let us consider gadjets.


I am not a person who is now, or has ever been, "into gadjets." As we increasingly live in a gadjet minded world this makes me more and more "out of it."
For example, when I carve a turkey I want a good sharp knife and a big solid fork to hold it down, no fancy pronged carving board and electric saw that looks like it was made for cutting hedges and buzzes away like a lawnmower. Similarly, when I open a bottle of wine I want a simple old-fashioned corkscrew, one that you have to twist into the cork, not some new fangled gadjet that looks like a hypodermic needle and pumps air into the bottle. Electric can openers don't impress me one bit. Like all such gadjets they are too complicated and tend to break down. Give me one of those old crank openers for the rare occasions that I need one (cans being themselves gadjets that foul the taste and quality of whatever they contain). Fresh fruits and vegetables are "where it's at" as far as I'm concerned.
And what about those super-duper fancy one-piece things that sort of look like pliers but claim to be a single tool for doing everything from cutting your toenails to washing your car? Have you ever seen anyone use one of those things? Of course not. They are made for the "gadjet minded." When you really need a tool you probably pick up a rock or a stick, having left the gadjet you might need at home on the shelf with the rest of the junk.
Battery operated gadjets are the absolute worst. Batteries are always dead just when you need them the most. There is obviously a conspiracy to dump more and more battery driven toys and gadjets on an unsuspecting and gullible public. Who can resist a battery operated teddy bear that beats a drum. Or an electric jeep that turns cartwheels? Or whatever? Horror of horrors! Someone once gave me a battery operated shoeshine brush. Of course you still had to slap the polish on by hand - but after that, wow, you just turned on the machine and a little round brush went round and round and your shoes were "automatically" polished. That is, that's what was supposed to happen. What really happened, of course, was that the batteries ran down and/or the switch didn't work and/or the kids had left the damn thing out in the yard, or some such.
Of course all these gadjets are trivial compared to the more recent gadjet conspiracy, the gadjet to virtually replace all gadjets, the home computer. Now we are all being told that everyone needs a computer -- the elementary school child, the secondary school child, the college student, the professional and businessmen, and even the man or woman of the house. I'm sure the true gadjeteers think they have died and gone to heaven. But what, pray tell, does one need with a computer to keep track of the mundane and relatively simple everyday tasks of home life. Do you really need a computer to do grocery lists or keep track of the last time the lawn was mowed? Homemakers who need computers must certainly have much more complicated chores than I, who can keep track of everything on the fingers of my two hands. I realize this argument won't faze the dedicated gadjet minded up-to-date innovator who just has to stay on top of all the latest developments. Like my wife. She can stand openmouthed and fascinated in front of gadjets all day long - electric toothbrushes, totally impractical cheese slicers, massaging shower heads, automatic apple peelers, electric ground-warmers, automatic card-shufflers and bird feeders, fake fireplaces, and gadjets for recording how many gadjets she has.
I know now how my parents felt when the motor car swept the country and the airplane was invented, when radio became popular and television came into being, and even when bubble gum was invented. I should probably feel even more left behind. But I don't. Give me "the good old days" (whatever they might have been) and the bare necessities of life. Let my hammock swing free in the wind under the pines all by itself.
Obviously this essay was written quite some time ago. To bring it up to date one would have to consider telephones that play music and take pictures and can be carried everywhere, thus enabling their owners to be in constant communication with someone at all times. This is extremely convenient as it allows one to report on precisely what one is eating at the time of the eating, where one is sitting in the airport waiting for their plane, what they purchased within minutes of when they purchased it, what color it is, how no one else has it, their precise location on the street at the moment, and so on. I have no doubt that soon these phones will be able to wash your dog, shampoo your hair, and cut your nails while also giving you a massage. There are other gadjets nowadays so complicated I cannot even describe them. I confess to be hopelessly lost in the past when people still used bows and arrows (gadjets), spears (gadjets), flint and stone (gadjets), atlatls and boomerangs (super gadjets), and whatever. At least they didn't need batteries. But, as a fragile and helpless human being, I guess I have to say, give me gadjets or give me death.