Tech-annoyance

I love technology. In literary terms, I phile techno. But it is not an unconditional love.

One condition I have is that to receive my love, technology must not be annoying. I occasionally run across a technology that is annoying, and I want it to be gone from my sight and my consciousness as quickly as its two little techno-legs will carry it.

For instance, cell towers that look like trees. At least their creators think they look like trees, or maybe they think we'll be extremely grateful because they tried so hard to make them look like trees. Driving east from Gardner on Route 2, one cannot avoid looking at a cell tower that, were I forced at gunpoint to find its resemblance to a tree, I would have to compare to a giant sequoia. It is, indeed, in the midst of a lot of other trees, none of which have the vaguest resemblance to giant sequoias, or even little baby sequoias. I say that until scientists, through the magic of genetic engineering, are able to grow forests of trees that look like cell towers, Verizon et al need to find another solution. That is, if we have to have cell phones.

My feelings about cell phones are... ambiguous. They bat their little cellular eyes at me, and, I confess, my heart races a bit. But whenever I see, or worse hear someone using a cell phone, I instantly find that person less attractive. The person who sits close to me at work who has a different ring tone for every person she knows, who knows lots of people, and whose most frequent caller has the honor of announcing his cellular presence with a perfect rendition of a 1950's phone with an actual bell and clanger inside of it, has severely hampered my aural satisfaction with living.

Technology can be just plain silly. Take, for example, those machines at checkout counters that you're supposed to use to sign your name for a credit purchase. The pen is as fat as a cigar, anchored at one end by a stiff wire that has three and a half twists in it, which serves to discourage the pen from pointing at the glass pad where you're supposed to sign. When finally you coax it into approximately the right orientation, you discover that there is no place to rest your hand while you sign. That forces you to sign by using your entire arm, most of which is extremely unaccustomed to being in use during the signing experience. It is then you realize that under no other circumstances have you ever signed a piece of glass. When you finally sign it, and tilt your head so you can see the result without the glare of the overhead fluorescents, you are unsurprised to discover it looks nothing at all like your signature, and that the use of your shoulder muscles rendered it approximately four times its usual size.

The entire signing experience makes you feel silly, but the really silly part comes next. The clerk picks up your credit card, looks at its signature, carefully compares it with your just-completed random scribble, smiles, nods his head, and hands it back to you just as if it were a perfect match. It took lots of training at the Massachusetts Institute of Silly Technology to perfect that performance, and you at least have to respect that.

President Bush's least favorite technology, I'm told, is the teleprompter. Now, I don't agree with George on every little matter, but I admit to resonating with this particular opinion. For George, the durn thing goes too fast, or too slow, or sometimes has words that are hard to pronounce. The strain of trying to stay up with the scrolling text on the teleprompter sometimes makes him go a little cross-eyed. For me, as a witness to the resulting performance, I find it difficult to stay attentive to the message of a cross-eyed person giving a speech, whose eyes when not crossed seem to be looking at my forehead, but maybe that's just me. At least, I don't seem to be in the majority.

Some of the most mundane technologies are the most annoying, particularly those that you encounter on a daily basis. For example, product packaging. You would think they would have cereal boxes down pat, by now. Every time I open a new box of MiniWheats, I work my way through a box that was designed to be easy to open and re-sealable, only to discover a space age material inside that cannot be opened by human hands, and once opened will never again discourage a wayward weevil.

And, if you're able to overcome your resistance to taking out a second mortgage to buy a new razor, which has at least one or two more blades than you actually need, how do you feel about trying to free it from a square foot of packaging made out of Space Age Material #2? I try to keep track of my wife's garden snippers just for these occasions.

Which brings us to my least favorite packaging technology, and may a special place in the HereUnder be reserved for the inventors of CD packaging. You are first required to unwrap the CD box from a material that appears to be cellophane, but is actually Space Age Material #3. When you finally get that off, you are confronted with little sticky strips which cover all the edges, and which are absolutely impossible to remove in one piece. They come off in little 1/8" strips, and as each comes off it sticks to you in a way that only my cat could enjoy. Finally, you have to figure just the right way to hold the box to actually get it open, and just the right way to grab the disc -- only by the edges, of course -- to pry it loose from the box.

And the recording industry wonders why kids are copying music over the internet?

As for those little stickers on fruit... don't even get me started.

Power to the people.

T.I.N.