LOVE THOSE GADGETS!

Eileen Cichello

I have a thing for gadgets and appliances. Anything that will make work easier ranks high on my most favored list. Not for me "the good old days" with scrub boards, coal-burning stoves, and fireplaces the only source of heat…you get the idea. I like pushing buttons and instructing machines to do my work for me. I'm waiting patiently for the day computers will inventory cupboards, plan meals taking health factors and likes and dislikes into consideration, write out the grocery list, order the items needed, have them delivered and then…oh, joy! cook and serve the meal. I'll even do the clean up, with the aid of my trusty dishwasher.  I'm waiting also for the robot which will clean my house while I think deep thoughts, read novels and otherwise enjoy the good life.

In the meantime, while waiting for this glorious day, I tend to fall for the latest gadgets. For that reason, I usually avoid reading the catalogs that inundate our mailbox. When I do read them, I usually fall for a couple of items that promise to make life easier.

There's the cosmetic bag for traveling you can hang in the bathroom. Sounds good. Only trouble is it won't hold half the supplies I need to compensate for what the years have done. There's the doo-hickey with miniature scissors (3/4 inch!), screw driver, bottle opener, and a tiny rather dull knife. My husband Sam made some snide comment when he saw it and I now carry it with me at all times, waiting for the day when we will need one of its functions desperately and I will graciously hand it to Sam, not even saying, "See, I was right."

There's a door chime for the back door. Since we added on to the house over 20 years ago, that particular door hasn't had any way for someone to let us know they're out there waiting to get in. The door chime had been sitting on the counter for three months and periodically I'd say to Sam, "How about hooking that up?" His reply: "Yeah, I've been meaning to do that."  Well, he finally did. I'd envisioned something like wind chimes wafting through the house when you pressed the button. Unfortunately it sounds more like a buzzer…well, at least now we can tell when there are people out there, instead of instructing everyone to "Just open the door and yell loudly."

There's the pants extender, sitting on the bathroom counter. I'm afraid if I put it away, I'll forget I have it and there are many pairs of tight pants in this house. I just forget to grab them while they're wet and stretch them. I also can't find my tape measure to set it at the right width.

Apple peelers...I have two. The first one worked really well but its clamp was too small for the table or counter edges. Consequently, I had to put it on a cutting board. The grandkids all cheered to see it whirl off the apple peels but you needed another person holding the cutting board or it would bounce all over the place. It peeled and cored wonderfully but the extra manpower needed kind of defeated the purpose. Since it peeled so well, I bought one you didn't have to clamp down. Guess what? It must have been programmed for some very strange shaped apple, since it only cut off pieces here and there. I didn't return it before discarding the box it came in, so there sits another useless piece of equipment. With this second, neurotic peeler, one of the inducements to buy it was that I got a free vegetable chopper, supposedly worth $10.00. That item will cut stuff but everything gets stuck in the spaces and it's almost impossible to get the pieces out.

Years ago there were 88 cent specials on a wide variety of items in a catalog and I went bonkers. The kids who were home when they arrived jeered and cackled as one after another disintegrated on use.

There have been many good purchases too, like the Salad Shooter. My son John hooted when he saw it but got quickly silent as he watched the ingredients spewing out into the salad bowl. I have to admit I smirked.

You win some, you lose some. Do you know how many items I considered getting and didn't as I wait for that glorious day when computers do it all?

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