When
I was a young girl, I recall seeing the "World of Tomorrow"
at the New York World's Fair and being impressed by the
promise of a labor-free home where appliances ran themselves
and all kinds of services could be magically dispensed with
the flick of a switch.
All that seemed to be required
of the smiling model in her pristine apron who showed us
through the home, was that she remember the location of
the various buttons she was required to push. Why is it,
more than a half-century later, I feel as though, in many
ways, technology has made my life not easier but more complicated
than ever?
Recently, for example, we
decided we needed to replace our refrigerator-freezer, a
new experience for us since previously, the appliances were
always included in whatever home we purchased during our
many moves.
After duly checking Consumer Reports
as to the most energy-efficient and cost-effective model,
we headed for our nearest Sears store. We were lucky to
find that rare creature, a knowledgeable salesperson, but
even so, the choices were daunting.
Our 20-year-old kitchen appliances
were all almond color which now has metamorphosed into bisque,
a lighter off-white shade. In any event, the only side-by-side
model with the required dimensions, came in stainless.
Plunking down an extra hundred
dollars (in addition to a price that was more than we paid
for our first car) for a no-fingerprint finish, I realized
this new box would extend several inches beyond the kitchen
counter, and with its dominance, make everything else appear
antiquated in contrast to its nouveau industrial look.
Delivery was scheduled for
"sometime" Monday, to be determined within a two-hour
time frame, by a call from Sears on Sunday night. Meanwhile,
we went home to ponder where to store the present chock-full
contents of our present box until the new one ramped up
to the required cold level.
"Maybe we should have
done this in December when we could store food on the deck,"
I belatedly wailed to my husband. Our neighbor, Rosemary,
came to the rescue with an offer to temporarily move everything
into her garage-freezer but Val had an even better idea.
Why not have Sears pick up our old refrigerator the following
day, allowing plenty of time for an easy transfer of all
the food.
Positively brilliant, I thought,
but Sears' usual delivery doesn't work that way and in trying
to change the "take-away" date in the automated
delivery system, it kept changing our delivery date, instead.
Finally, reaching a real live
person, somewhere in India, we were, I hope, able to express
what we wanted to do.
Frankly, I have my fingers
crossed. The second purchase I hope to make is a basic,
no-frills sofa for my home office.
The present 20-year-old one
is a complete shambles, having served as a convenient scratching
post for a series of cats. The IKEA catalog had, I thought,
the perfect answer: a simple style that comes with a washable,
zippered slipcover.
In person, the sofa was even
nicer than the picture, but to my dismay, I learned that
the sofa comes unassembled. Since we had come close to a
major family melt-down during a previous "easy-to-assemble"
experience, that was out of the question.
The boxed sections were also
too heavy for us to load into the wagon ourselves, so that
would mean a whopping delivery charge in addition to the
cost of a home assembly service. And the final coup de grace,
is paying someone to remove and dispose of the old sofa.
I'm ready to forget the whole
thing by watching one of those mindless summer television
"sit-coms" except that I haven't figured out how
to work our new "easy-to-use" remote control.
If this is the "World of Tomorrow,"
I'm ready to trade some of it for a bit of less-stressful
"yesterday."
Jean Cherni
is founder of Senior Living Solutions, a retirement advisory
service. Contact her at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or
15 The Ponds, Branford 06405.
H. Pearce Company REALTORS®
is a full-service real estate company with more than 100
agents and branch offices in greater New Haven and the Shoreline.
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Haven, where the company was founded in 1958. All listings
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