Dumbing Down the House

My coffee maker died the other day. It had been making these peculiar spitting and hissing noises for awhile, but the other morning it erupted in a geyser of steam and coffee grounds which spewed out of the top like Old Faithful while making a sound which was a cross between a supersonic jet throwing it's thrusters in reverse, and a gazelle being taken to the ground by a 600 pound lion. Then, it's poor LEDs slowly faded and that was that. So, I set out to purchase a new one. Knowing next to nothing about coffee makers, I did what most people in this situation do; I purchased the one with the glossiest photo on the box. Which turned out to the the Itchy-Scratchy model 3500 XLE Super Turbo Charged Coffee Processing and Brewing Station. And - it was on sale. For only $129.95. Had I taken a few minutes to check the consumer reviews for this model, I would have known that it got one-eighth of a star (out of five) in the "ease of use" category. But, no, I had to have my coffee.

This thing has a "bean processor" mode. You pour coffee beans into the top and a little mechical arm skewers each bean lengthwise, and holds it up to a little window so you can see three tiny micro-drills lower from each side and the back and slowly pulverize the bean into "fine", "extra-fine", or "microscopic" coffee. It has an "audio alert" feature which plays one of nine different tunes when your coffee is done; from On Top of Old Smokey to Baby Got Back. My first clue that I'd made an unwise purchase was when I attempted to set the clock. It had four options: standard time, military time, Greenwich Mean Time, or Swatch Beats. And the program mode. According to the manual, in order to set the Coffee Processing and Brewing Station to brew a pot of coffee at some point in the future, you had to "press and hold the PROGRAM button, while quickly tapping the PRESET button and gently pushing the MODE slider to the right". I thought I had successfully set this thing to brew a pot of coffee at seven am, but it's been three days, and so far - nothing. I take that back - it did play Stayin' Alive at some point yesterday afternoon.

These new household appliances have just gotten too complicated. Take my stereo for example. It has an "auto-pre-scan-select" mode, which will - allegedly - scan for all the radio stations the unit is able to receive and number them one to 65,536. I didn't think there were 65,636 radio stations in the entire world. But, in order to use the "auto-pre-scan-select" mode, one has to press and hold eleven buttons for a minimum of 3.8 seconds. So, whenever our power goes out, we have to have the neighbors come over and help us get it re-programmed.

And remotes. Don't get me started on the remotes. At last count, we had 23, of which some don't seem to work with anything in the house. One for example, has the inscription "Goldofenwicz" across the bottom. It has a whopping 93 buttons on it, some of which are labeled "comp", "sinewave", "sawtooth", "sync" and "N-SYNC".

Even our floor-standing, oscillating fan has a remote control, with which one can turn it on and off, select the speed, and direction, and toggle the oscillation on or off. Oh, it also has a sleep timer. A fan. With a remote control. To be precise, I should say I used to have such a fan. But, in one of those moments that only appear incredibly stupid upon reflection, I wanted to see what would happen if I pressed and held all the buttons at the same time. All I can say is: don't do it. This one took flight, flew around the room for a minute or so, (buzzing the bed twice in the process), began gyrating wildly like a helicopter with a broken anti-torque rotor, then slammed into the wall.

So if, like me, you actually believed that one day you'd live in a "home of the future" with all those one-touch, set-it-and-forget-it appliances like in the Jetsons, all I can tell you is I'm still waiting. In the meantime, I think I'll run down to the Quik-E-Mart. For a cup of coffee.