Just when you think you’ve seen it all, someone comes up with a new gadget that defies common sense. For years we’ve been able to turn lights on and off by clapping our hands. This saves us the grueling work of getting up off the couch to flick a light switch. Battery-operated forks have been around for awhile, too. It twirls your spaghetti or linguini for you. We are thus spared expending any actual effort while stuffing our faces. No, I’m certainly not against the many devices that assist people with physical pain or limitations. There are scores of truly helpful devices for those who suffer from crippling arthritis, for example. Remote controls (most of them), and electric shavers, blowdryers and toothbrushes serve their purposes. But there’s a fine line between convenience and extravagance, between consumerism and excess. And that line gets less distinguishable each holiday marketing season. Now, there’s a gadget that will grate food for you. Moving one’s hand back and forth a couple of inches is, apparently, too much work. So you can hold a block of cheese on this battery-powered grater that slowly moves back and forth. How about a device that stirs your cooking sauces on the stove. Sure, everyone loves homemade food, but who wants all that drudgery of stirring a pan? You can get a special machine that turns ice cream into soft-serve. Does that mean that the battery-powered, heated ice-cream scoop is now obsolete? Thanks to a small, robotic vacuum cleaner, one can clean the floor without even being in the house. And we thought our pets were freaked out by regular vacuum cleaners. There are now machines to do many “difficult” things for us: slice butter, shake salt, dial a phone, rinse lettuce, dispense shampoo, and flip pancakes. The ultimate that I’ve seen so far this year is a dish scrubber that uses batteries. A scrubbing head spins around so the user only has to touch the scrubber to a dirty plate or glass. Today, we can have our appliances and gadgets prepare a meal, we can eat it battery-assisted, and we can clean up afterward with virtually no wrist movement whatsoever. Why not skip all the bother and just take our nourishment in a convenient, skin-applied patch? As a kid, I loved “The Jetsons” cartoons. Still do. But the appeal was the fantasy of it all: robots for just about everything, cars that drive themselves (then pop down to briefcase size), and machines that anticipate every human need. This was a fun look at a distant future (the year 2062) where machines and humans are nearly interchangeable. We live in a culture where people drive everywhere and use elevators and escalators whenever possible, then drive to a health club to climb stairs and walk on a treadmill. We buy gadgets to remove any trace of work from our lives, then we buy exercise machines that can work our muscles while we sit, inactive, watching television. As a society we’re headed the way of ancient Rome – toward excess and, ultimately, ruin. And we wonder why the rest of the world despises our lifestyle? Each year we’re faced with a choice: do we “buy into” all the commercials for silly gadgets that remove us even further from the human experience? Or do we focus on the human side of the holidays: being with family and friends, and giving because we want to give, not because we feel we “have to”? P.S. to Santa: Please don’t bring me a “salad shooter.”
