I remember the first time I saw a bar code sticker stuck to the fruit I was buying at the supermarket. I was shocked, and somewhat offended that this natural product had been assaulted by our fast paced technological world. I cautiously gouged that sticker away from my fruit prior to eating it lest any toxins ruin the experience for my digestive system or other organs. By now I have gotten used to that particular innovation, especially after I was informed that our CBA’s own Rich Evans had a lot to do with developing the technology. Fresh produce at a more efficient price is a good thing for all of us. Rich is a stalwart of the monthly trivia question poser and I look forward to picking with him again at Lodi next month.
So I’m over the sticker on my fruit angst but there are still inventions out there that trouble me. I think they’re stupid. Here’s my list (in no particular order):
(1) The water faucet dead man switch. I know these are designed to save precious water in our arid west but every time I use one it wastes water because I would have turned it off more promptly.
(2) The automatic drive side window switch. I have only seen these on Toyotas and Hondas but they are likely ubiquitous. When you roll down the driver side window the car automatically assumes that you want to roll the window all the way down so it does that for you. The problem is most of the time i DON’T want to do that and it becomes extremely annoying if I want to just crack the window. I actually had to replace one of the motors in my drive side window once just because of overuse due to this annoyance.
(3) The rumble strips at the supermarket. Every grocery store I go to these days seems to have a yellow ramp with big bumps imbedded in the plastic. Presumably it’s for safety but all it really does is shake up everything in my grocery cart before I can cross the alley way to my car in the lot.
(4) The do it yourself endoscope. I just saw a commercial this week about a fiberoptic device you can use to look down your drain and do all sorts of other handy chores which are quite different from what the Ronco splatter screen was capable of. I fear that it is only a matter of time until some fool decides to use this technology to perform their own colonoscopy and post it on the internet.
(5) The mandolin fret board extension. Have you ever seen anybody play a note up on the far end of a mandolin fretboard? It it ever happened it would sound terrible anyway. I’ll admit that tradition and aesthetics are in its favor but in my opinion as a mandolinist, the only function of the fretboard extension is to mess up your sound by causing a lot of unnecessary tapping noises from your pick hitting it. That’s why a lot of mandolinists either scoop it out or chop it off.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few but maybe five is enough. I’m sure you have your own lists.
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
