A Horse is A Horse, Of Course, Of Course

You Know what I noticed the other day?

My shaver is just a shaver. It is a rechargeable, battery operated facial hair removal system. Nothing more, nothing less. And my toaster is just a toaster. Yes, it will toast up to four slices of bread at once, or bagel slices or equivalent and little else. It can make the toast in 19 varying degrees from Barely Toasted to Cajun Blackened. But my toaster makes toast. Which, believe it or not, is why my wife and I purchased it in the first place.

On the other hand, my son’s cell phone is used to do almost everything EXCEPT make and receive phone calls, which has become the norm for people under 60 and why Alexander Graham Bell is probably rolling over in his coffin. Instead of being a portable vocal communication device, his addictive “crackberry” is a typewriter like text machine that uses abbreviated words like OMG, BRB and SBMB as a communication device.

It is considered a “smart phone” which means it can do everything, except earn any money with which to pay the exorbitant monthly bill. (Now that would be smart!)

His mobile phone is more like a tricorder with all its bleeps and bloops and apps. It can take pictures of me in my least flattering poses and post them on a social network site for all to see and comment on. (Tag I'm it!)

It can take videos of me snoring in my hammock and falling on my face when my neighbor comes to wake me to say that I sound like a wildebeest and am scaring his pet rabbit. It can GPS the UPS depot so that he can get there ASAP to pick up his new books for class. And these books were ordered with his device as well.

It can tell him that his Mets have let another game slip on by and play tons of MP3 type music about “Hittin’ The Club” and can even  be used as a flashlight when he is at the movies and drops his car keys under the seat. It is a video game player, a TV show/movie viewer and can offer weather views of everywhere on the planet. But God forbid I call to talk to him and hear his voice because I had a technical question about my new laptop, it goes right to his voicemail.

You see, my technological skills have waned as I have aged. I have lived through going into friends homes and assorted rooms with music players in them that used; gramophone cylinders, then records, then 8-tracks, then cassettes, then compact discs and now mp3s or SDHC cards. Or now maybe I can go room and listen to music with my laptop and it can get a bit confusing. The media that we play a simple song on changes every few years and it is as tough to keep track of as George Clooney's girlfriends.

Now I get in front on my computer and the music site says- “Click here to enter” and I begin to click, but I can’t for the life of me think of a way that my body is going to fit inside that tiny 17 inch LCD space to listen properly. So I call for service and the tech rep named Bubba Patel tells me to open Windows.

I said the last time I climbed through windows to listen to music was at Sonia Gambino’s basement when I was in High School. (It was probably Bat Out Of Hell by Meat Loaf). Then he says that he now realizes the problem and it is between my keyboard and my chair. Now wouldn’t you just know it?