I love the way modern appliances don’t work.
My watch runs out of power then takes forever to charge and when it does, it doesn’t even come on. And before it runs out of power, it only tells the time. What good is a watch like that, I ask you?
Right before my laptop dies, it tells me to plug it in. Why? If it’s a laptop with a battery, shouldn’t it stay charged?
My toothbrush has gotten cranky as well. Charging only lasts about a week or so an then it doesn’t even last long enough for me to finish brushing and then I have to run around with a dirty mouth until it recharges.
But the worst by far is my Toyota Corolla. Maybe because it’s old or maybe because it was built back in 2000, it doesn’t work the way the newfangled cars work. Apparently, there’s a time limit on how long the power lock will work after the ignition is turned off.
I learned this the hard way recently when I was having an NPR driveway moment.
I pulled into my driveway ad was listening to a National Public Radio story for another 10 minutes before I was ready to go in. Then I pulled back the door handle, but the door didn’t open because I locked it when I got in.
No problem, I thought. I’ll just unlock it with the power lock button.
No such luck. I could hear the button click and the power lock try to engage but there wasn’t any power. I thought maybe I’d done it wrong. So, I hit the opposite end of the switch again. And again. And again. Still, nothing.
Frustrated, I tried it several times in rapid succession. Still nothing. So I hit the side of the door really hard to engage the motor.
Nothing.
Perhaps the driver’s side just cut out, I thought. So, I tried the lock switch on the passenger’s side, but no matter what I tried, the lock wouldn’t go up.
At this point, I was getting pretty panicked, but I didn’t care. There was no way in hell I was going to embarrass myself by contacting AAA for roadside service or calling my wife inside the house just yards away to get her keys and rescue me because I knew I’d never live it down.
No, I wasn’t going to give up that easy.
So, I stopped trying for a few minutes, took a few deep breaths, stared at the lock tab stuck down by my window and tried to figure a way out of my crisis.
And then it came to me.
I’d restart the car and see if the lock would work. And it did!
Thank goodness for the power of calm and ingenuity.
Still, I was reminded of the story of the idiot who called AAA to report that he’d locked his keys in his car. After providing all of the details to the dispatcher, he frantically added, “Please hurry. It’s starting to rain and I left the top down!”
