Okay. I’m of a certain age. Much of technology has passed me by. Mostly because I don’t need it. I’m told by younger people in the family that it’s pretty old fashioned to actually want to talk to someone on the phone. Calling someone and hearing a phone ring………it’s kind of like dropping in on someone. Ringing their doorbell. Looking through the window and seeing them dive behind a couch.
“Don’t call me. Text!” I’m told.
Okay! I don’t really think that I’m the weirdo. I think that they are.
I got a new phone. Google tells me the joke of the day. Google tells me what the weather is going to be like. It tells me how to get to places that I’ve never been. I accept this. I’m old. This technology that recognizes my voice……..and my voice alone is pretty new.
I recognize that some steps into the future are pretty terrific. There are some things being reinvented that should have been left the hell alone.
Like ……….smoke detectors.
When I was a kid……..it was the family cat that saved us from a fire. Smoke filled the house. The cat that was grateful to be fed twice a day……smacked my mother in the face when the fireplace caught the wall on fire. My mother shook the rest of us awake. The volunteer firemen came. They sprayed white foam all over the place. They chopped down a wall. They put the fire out.
The cat saved us all.
Her name was Goldie. She loved us. We loved her.
She did her job.
No batteries needed.
My husband is a handy guy. He knows how to fix just about anything. Ladders don’t scare him. Electricity doesn’t faze him. Power tools have not claimed fingers. So far.
He always has a list. Things to do. Things to improve. So far…………..find a nicer, prettier wife hasn’t made the list.
He’s a keeper.
But, there was the time…….not so long ago…..when he decided that all the smoke detectors in the house were getting decrepit and out of date. He replaced them with state of the art…….hard wired…….talk to each other ……….noisy…….bothersome ………cry wolf ……..smoke detectors.
All of a sudden you couldn’t boil an egg in a sauce pan without this new system screaming…………FIRE FIRE CARBON MONOXIDE FIRE FIRE!………believe me…….It screamed it! Why the neighbors didn’t come running? I don’t know! I’m thinking they’re either deaf or they just don’t give a crap.
Our son lives with us. He’s a second shifter. He’s lost ten pounds since the coming of the new smoke detectors. Because, he’s petrified to cook a slice of bacon after ten p.m. He’d rather go hungry than wake up his family just to make a BLT.
So, my son came to management……….that’s me……….to complain.
“Ma! You’ve got to do something! Daddy’s in love with his new smoke detectors. But, there is something wrong! Why doesn’t he call the manufacturer? Do something! We can’t live like this!” he complained.
“I’ll handle it!” I said with confidence.
So……….I let my husband cook. He broiled. He baked. He boiled. And, all the while the smoke detectors told him that he was on fire. He opened windows. He poked the pause button with the end of a boom. He had fans blowing parts in his hair.
Nothing worked.
The old smoke detector still lived on the wall. The other six in the house sat there innocently ready to do their work.
Management had had enough.
The cat was on her way to having a nervous breakdown.
My husband ripped the blaring detector off of the ceiling. There was no smoke. There was no fire. It would not shut up.
He wrapped it in plastic. It shut up for a minute. It started screaming again. He walked it outside. He walked a good thirty yards away and threw it into the shed. Still it complained.
He grabbed it. Went into the garage. He grabbed a hammer. Remember, he’s a handy guy.
He beat it to death with a hammer. He opened up the trash can …..threw it in……and slammed the cover shut.
Management had done their job.
And, our cat will do her job too.
I feed her twice a day.
growinguponcolumbusstreet 