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February 18, 2005

Consumer Semi-Durables

In which the wireless router breaks. Again.

Our wireless router broke last week. Super Bowl Sunday, to be exact. (Call it an omen.) Though losing the router isn't a completely crippling equipment failure at my residence (the cable modem still worked and we could poach other wireless networks from our unsuspectingly generous neighbors), it certainly qualifies as inconvenient, requiring multiple calls to the broadband provider and the equipment manufacturer and the attendant arguments with customer service representatives.

If you're keeping track, that brings us to four (4) wireless routers killed by our apartment over the past three (3) years. Said apartment has also killed a Playstation 2 (we're on our second one of those), a couch (BrownCouch, we miss you so!), a nintendo chair (these little things that sit on the ground and rock back and forth -- it makes sense when you see it), two remote controls (we thought it was just the batteries on one -- 'fraid not), and two coffee makers (though the new one is absolutely a pleasure; good riddance to the bilge-water-brewing old ones).

From a score-keeping perspective, it's a pretty impressive tally (and I'm sure I've omitted a few things). From an acting-like-a-grown-up perspective, it's pretty weak. If I was an appliance or consumer electronics product, I would be absolutely terrified at the prospect of being assigned to our apartment. We're like the house next door to Andy's with all the mutilated playthings in Toy Story.

I bring this up because in a conversation with my Dad the other night, he not-so-subtly hinted that I was "not nice to machines." I told him I was thinking about buying a car, and before I could finish the sentence, he said, "Two-year lease." Huh? "For you, two-year lease. You'll pay a little more, but at least you won't have to worry about maintenance." Yikes! I didn't realize I was one of the gorillas from the Samsonite commercial. Then we got to talking about machines in general, and he observed that people don't think enough about routine, preventative maintenance. Surely this is true; at the same time, how many machines (other than cars) actually allow for preventative maintenance?

Take my computer. I'm pretty meticulous about running anti-virus and anti-spyware/ anti-adware applications. I don't like things gunking up my (increasingly) fragile works. I never open e-mail attachments. I have an external hard drive where everything is backed up. I even have an anal filing system and abhor leaving unattended documents on my desktop. At the same time, my computer is on the verge of dying. Too much carrying around and ferrying to and fro on the subway has actually caused structural damage to the poor little thing. It's fine when it's on, but apparently some connection is loose inside such that it's REALLY HARD to power it up should it turn off. Past sending it back to to manufacturer for a new model (keep dreaming -- my warranty expired years ago), I really don't have much of a choice. Compaq Presario 700, it's you and me forever!

The interesting thing is that with so few actual mechanical technologies involved in our daily life, it's really hard for normal folks to "maintain" things, much less "fix" them. Oh, we can tinker with firmware or defrag our hard drive, but what do you do when your MP3 player won't turn on? When the button on the remote control doesn't work anymore? It's fine when the replacement value of the object is low; hello, path of least resistance! (Such is the case with the wireless router. Whereas we payed over $200 for our first one, the model we have now cost, wait for it, $19.99 after rebate. $19.99! I'll spend more than that on dinner tonight! And I won't even eat that well! For the cost of two six-packs at the deli, I get this nifty device that beams the most amazing communication technology in human history through the air! Amazing!) But when the replacement cost is more of a gutshot, you're SOL. And it isn't like technologies are getting more comprehensible or easily maintained in the future.

Of course, there's plenty of room for heavy-handed metaphors for how our treatment of machines echoes our cultural attitudes towards our bodies -- we don't want to take preventative steps with our health, we just want the doctors to fix us when we're broken. I'm sure there's some deeper significance buried in there somewhere. Mostly I'm just trying to find some excuse for our man cave's unique record of appliance killing that doesn't involve the words "clumsy," "ham-fisted," or "in the manner of Neaderthals trying to build a fire with a mobile phone." Maybe it isn't really our fault! Maybe it was all a coincidence! Maybe they just don't make 'em like they used to!

(Or maybe I have the dexterity of a drunken chimpanzee. Probably that last one.)

Posted by thatkid at February 18, 2005 12:52 PM under Stuff To Buy

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