Gadgets
Our toaster oven died a flaming death last night. The heating element cracked and dropped into the base which, visually, was an interesting change from the normal gentle browning of the toast. So, today, I have the mundane task of buying a new toaster. I am a mixture of excitement and dread: excitement because, like all good gear whores, I now have a perfectly good excuse to go play with the new toys; dread because we've had our old toaster so long for a reason and you never know if the feature set is still considered marketable by the manufacturers.
I have a voice-activated Braun alarm clock which has been my steady companion for nearly fifteen years. The beautiful thing about this clock (other than its size and portability) is how much thought went into making the voice activated part of the clock actually functional. Yes, when the alarm goes off, I tell it to take a hike and it goes silent. That is exactly what it is supposed to do and, contrary to what you might think about how little that would get you to wake up, it works deceptively well. When it starts, it starts softly, like a little scratching at the window. "Ah, hello? It may be time to get up. Would you like to check?" Then it gets louder, each series of tones harsher than the last. "Hey, slacker! Time to make the donuts!" And here's the real beauty of the time piece. You have to make more noise than the ambient level of sound in the room for it to register. You can't just groan and roll over; you have to really project to get it to stop. "FUCK OFF! IT'S THE WEEKEND!"
Five minutes later..."Ah, hello? It may be time to get up. Would you like to check?"
I love this clock. My grandfather gave it to me, and at the time, I thought it was sort of a strange and weird gift to give to a boy going off to college -- I mean, this was my first year of college, I was anticipating needing an air raid siren to get me out of bed in the morning. My grandfather was a wise man, and he knew how much a young lad would grow to love the simplicity and elegance of a nearly indestructible clock that you communicated with through sound. I have a bookmark to a store which sells them because I know -- eventually, surely -- replacing the single AA battery won't be enough to resuscitate this clock. I won't want a new clock; I'll want my old one and, even now, I see that the modern version has colored buttons on top instead of a single wide bar and that the snooze time is now eight minutes instead of five.
I worry that I won't be able to find a toaster oven that can handle four pieces of bread. I worry that toast is so last year and all the new machines will only do bagels. Some days I'm not so eager to embrace the new.