Them Modern Gimcracks

The most cursed-at object in our home, beside the autographed picture of Shirley Phelps, is the combination printer/scanner/copier/deep fryer/carpet steamer with the personal computer.  It suffers paper jams, it gets balky, it makes 0 copies when I want 10 of something and 10 when I want 1 of something.  Sometimes I even hear it laughing at me as I press its power button again and again and again.

And yet, when it works...what a miracle!  When Peggy brings me a legal document or a bill of which she needs a copy, it's a lot faster to use the old HP Deskjet F4440 than it is to run to the grocery store with a few quarters in my pockets.   If they even still HAVE those Xerox-Ur-Self machines at the Try 'N' Save.  Where would be without our pcs and printers?

And remember heating up leftovers in the oven, or waiting 45 minutes for a TV dinner to cook in the Norge oven?  Half the time, I gave up, put a stick in it, and made a beef dinner popsicle of it.  But microwaves came along and where would be without them?

We'd be in the dark, often, without flashlights, and now that they have the LED variety instead of the old 1/2-watt bulb, we can actually see stuff in the dark!

The Keurig machine, which took away the need to make enough coffee for a beatnik convention!  The cordless house phone, so we can sit on the porch and use our Electric Bug Zapper while enjoying a nice summer evening swelter!  Pre-Wash fabric sprays to take away the shame of a coffee stain from your new white polo shirt!

And Google maps, with the talking geo-person in your cell phone to figure out how to get from point A to point B. Quite literally, where would we be without GPS?