IT was the end of days. Or, at least, that’s how it felt.
Technology had disowned me, and so everything electrical in my house decided to take a permanent vacation to the big recycling centre in the sky. No note, no goodbye, nothing.
First was the microwave. If you’ve been following my travels from day one, you’ll know it caught fire and almost exploded in my face while supposedly doing its job of reheating my dessert. I mourned its loss deeply.
Being as I am somewhat challenged in the kitchen, it was my only culinary companion, with the possible exception of the toaster.
Soon after that, the vacuum cleaner died a slow death. It had never been the best, but it still got the job done, and had soldiered on even after I’d ripped the hose off and had to re-attach it with sellotape. (Not just a pretty face, me.) But then it got old and lazy and wouldn’t pick anything up anymore. Much like myself.
What didn’t die a slow death, but a rather quick and somewhat unexpected one, was my laptop. Five years of faithful service before it finally decided it had had enough and I got the thing most techno geeks have nightmares about: the blue screen of death.
Now, my laptop is like my right arm, so losing it wasn’t a pleasant experience at all. I sat on the stairs for some time, rocking back and forth, eyes glazed over, trying to soothe myself and remain in a state of denial. It would fix itself. Of course it would fix itself.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the TV followed it. Admittedly it might have had something to do with the fact that I’d dropped it a while back when trying to move it. (I’m just saying, it’s a possibility.) All I know is that I turned it on one day to sound but no picture. And let’s face it, the picture is a pretty important part of the appeal.
So yes, my house is where electrical equipment comes to die. But it got me thinking about how much I, and so many others, rely on electronics.
Maybe I didn’t need to replace these items at all. Maybe now was the time to break free and rid myself of technology.
These days, your electronic presence means more than your actual presence. If you’re not on FaceBook, you’re nobody. If your thoughts can’t be summed up in 140 characters or less, you’ve no place in the new world. In short, Twitter rulez, tradition droolz.
The friendly regards have been replaced by friend requests; the thought has been replaced by the tweet; the banter has been replaced by the blog. (Indeed, this very column started its life as a blog.) Nokia’s motto reads “connecting people”, but how many times have you sat across from your dinner date and watched them yap away to someone else on their phone, or text someone else? How many times have you served a customer who didn’t even have the decency to cancel their call? How many times have you been that customer?
It’s easy to disconnect in a world of mobile phones, iPods and laptops. It’s easy to be anti-social, like me, and to prefer the company of your computer to the strains of a stranger. And it’s easy to drift away to a galaxy of gigabytes and leave the wearisome washing-up far behind you.
So is it time for me to disconnect from the digital world and reconnect with reality?
Well, all I can say is that I’m typing this on my new laptop, while my new TV records one of my favourite programmes, and I’m contemplating popping some food in my new microwave.
Did I mention I’m on Facebook?