At the rate I am going I will be addicted to Children’s Chewable Tylenol by next Tuesday. Here, for now, is another archived entry. Ho ho ho!
I was downstairs mopping the floors about an hour ago, the television humming in the background along with the cats and the dog. (The cats were humming Christmas carols, but I'm not at all sure what that tune was issuing from the dog. The words belonged to How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? but whoa...talk about off key!) Anyway, as I continued to spruce up the floors with my new Swiffer mop (my mother is spinning in her grave), I began thinking how much the world has changed in my brief thirty-seven years. A quick scan of the Internet, in fact, tells me that during this—or any—holiday season you can, for anywhere from 10 to 50,000 dollars, pick up any number of the following items: multiple-style robot kits, cousins to the more specifically useful Roomba Vacuuming Robot (how does it know?); automatic golf tees (for those of you who can swing, but not low) (comin' for to carry me home); revitalized Etch A Sketches (my brother was given one of those, along with a Slinky, when he was four years old, and he used to let me play with these toys on the stairs with him); a bells and whistles Rubik's Cube (I couldn't figure out the old one, and I don't think any number of accouterments are going to help me); a gyroscopic wrist exerciser (burn, baby burn...disco fever!); a ropeless jump rope (huh?); a remote control middle finger (my kids would love this one...which reminds me of the time, after years of teasing them with this same gesture, my two older children hauled me off to a late-night karaoke bar in Ottawa where they performed a duet and, while singing, raised their middle fingers—along with everyone else in that bar—in my direction. I think I might have actually blushed); a staple-free stapler (which would alleviate me of I don't know how many septicemia scares); a digital voice recorder pen (does it speak or does it write?); a desktop light therapy box (which has to be better than any therapist I ever encountered) (or encountertransferenced); a digital picture frame; a light-up umbrella (which I can do on my own quite nicely, given the right meteorological conditions); a—get this—grill alert talking remote (it would have to be remote) meat thermometer. (I see before me a roast beef yelling from behind closed oven doors, "I'm done! I'm done!") (and when we get behind closed doors...); picture-taking binoculars (great for you condominium dwellers); a Giant Swiss Army Knife (85 tools with 100 functions, all for a mere $999.00. Geeze, I can do practically all the same things, and I charge way less than that); a touch free soap dispenser (perfect for the Howard Hugheseses in your life), and a wireless weather station. (Do you remember the Kate Bush Cloudbusting video she made with Donald Sutherland, who, by the way, is beginning to look more and more like my father?).
No no no no no. I'm with my mother on this one...or close enough to stop her shrieking from beyond the grave. My notion of gadgetry reaches its technological limit at squirting floor mops, and prior to these sorts of Dust Buster-style advances, includes nutcrackers (also know as psychotherapists); manual corkscrews; letter openers (not without my daughter); voice mail (now this is an advance); Phillip head screwdrivers; fluorescent fly swatters; toothpicks, quartz battery-operated watches; paper clips; four cylinder engines; pencil sharpeners; scissors; tire jacks; shower caps; watering cans; nightlights; glow-in-the-dark toothbrushes; bobbin threaders, and non-giant Swiss Army knives. I am perfectly content to continue going about things in an antiquated fashion, mopping the floors, the t.v. on in the background, the cats and dog humming in their sweet old-fashioned ways.
How much is that doggie in the window? (arf! arf!)
The one with the waggley tail...
How much is that doggie in the window? (arf! arf!)
I do hope that doggie's for sale.
<:^)
Monday, December 29
Posted by Jennifer Coffey at 6:05 PM
Labels: Home and Garden
