Consumer Hood

I have become a walking, talking advertisement for obsolescence.  I still keep a stash of maps in the car “just in case.”  When I arrive at home, I run to “check the answering machine.” There has been no machine connected to my telephone for almost twenty years—just  some electronic function on the line that store my calls seamlessly.  My kids chuckle when I say I need to “dial” someone’s phone number.  I had to show them a phone with a dial in an antique store just so they wouldn’t think I was misusing the English language.  Today, you just “call” and someone answers.

A few years ago, my husband and I began collecting and restoring old mechanical typewriters.  Besides the midcentury chic of their industrial design, these machines convey a special sort of nostalgia.  Not so many years ago, touch typing was a true skill.  I was able to make a great living during my college days because I could type around 38 words per minute.  If you sit down at one of those relics today this seems like quite a feat.  When I typed papers for school, I had to push each key about two inches to cause the associated typebar to strike the platen.  In those days, accuracy was paramount, as corrections were clumsy and frowned upon.  This was especially true if you were making carbon copies, another obsolete concept.  I laugh every time I “cc:” someone on an email today.  My kids were surprised to discover that this abbreviation for “carbon copy” was also a vestige of a bygone era.  Today, there is no typing class in the public school curriculum, but instead of music class, all first graders learn “keyboarding.”

Just how many nouns have we turned into new-fangled verbs?  We “text” our messages, “Google” our colleagues, “friend” our acquaintances, and “tweet” our opinions.   We also “bookmark” our favorite websites, yet we no longer have books.  In addition, we have stopped changing our minds or reinventing ourselves; now, we become “version 2.0.”  Most disturbing, we live in a world where brainfarts are good and cookies are bad.

Today, as I was running back-to-college errands with my daughter (the summer was over so fast!), shaking my head at the vacant Tower Records and Blockbuster Video stores, my purse fell from the seat and dumped out half its contents.  Here, I realized sadly, was yet another of symbol of times-gone-by biting the dust.  For there on my “keychain” was not a single key—just an electronic fob (used to sense my proximity to the car) as well as nearly two dozen laminated, bar-coded membership cards.  These cards are used to track my consumer behaviors at supermarkets, drugstores, mall retail stores, and restaurants chains.  In most cases retailers hold me hostage, demanding that I “check in” with my card in exchange for fair market prices.  Other cards have the ability to reveal how often I visit the gym or the library.  

As consumers, we have our heads in the clouds while the threatening “cloud” becomes more and more ominous.  We are sitting prey to the electronic consumer industrial complex, powerless to protect our privacy or our money from those who would have us part company.  I continue to tiptoe through the world, ever the skeptic and late adopter, while everything and everyone around me travels at warp speed and transforms before my eyes.  There is one upside: I no longer fear losing my keys, as I have none.  To that, the big bad wolf says, “All the better to sell to you, my dear.”