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A Martian Goes Christmas Shopping

As a young lad I heard older men using expressions so out-of-date that I was embarrassed for their sakes. Usually the old expressions were agricultural in origin, or perhaps from popular radio programs of the 1930s or 40s. The expression, 'if a Martian landed tomorrow and saw that, he'd think...', has probably dropped out of the modern vernacular, perhaps due to the Space Age. That's a pity because looking at common things with an uncommon perspective is important. It's one of the great benefits of traveling.

The archaic expression seems compelling during the Christmas shopping season. Since RV traveling meant dry camping or boondocking for me, for years I made coffee with an Italian espresso maker that worked on the propane stove. Finally I tired of cleaning it, or maybe the coffee didn't taste that good anymore. Before that I had used a simple plastic cone with paper filters.

You might not believe it, but I've never owned one of those ubiquitous Mr. Coffee machines. Off I went to Wally World to look for one. How inexpensive they were, compared to twenty years ago! Wally even had expensive stainless steel espresso-makers imported from Europe. (Of course 'overpriced' and 'European' are redundant terms.)

The next step down in price were plastic coffee makers that were too large. Worse yet, they featured the dreaded word, 'programmable.' I groaned out loud. Are there actually customers who like that hateful word? The Walmart security camera didn't know how close I was to losing self-control. Imagine how it would have looked on the security room's TV if a customer suddenly went on a rampage, knocking all the coffee makers onto the floor.

Think back to the beginning of the dreadful digital age, circa 1970. Everybody on this planet bought one of those obnoxious little alarm clock/radio gadgets for their bedroom. All those buttons! All that memorization of a long, arbitrary sequence of keystrokes to accomplish the same functions that were intuitive on a wind-up, mechanical alarm clock; you know, the kind with two arms that rotate clockwise.

It just got worse over the years. The first personal computers used commands like alt-Q-& to erase the last letter that you typed. I put my foot down when they starting putting gadgets onto bicycle handlebars. The only real information came from a speed sensor. Then the digital electronics sliced and diced that simple information into the most useless statistics. When I told the other cyclists in the group that I didn't want any of that cheap electronic crap defiling the mechanical purity of my machine, they thought I was joking.

But of course the worst bane of the digital age has been the remote control: 40 years after this vaunted digital age began, it still takes two -- two! -- of the damned things just to watch a dvd movie. That adds up to about 70 buttons, most of which are too small for the fingers of anyone but a Japanese schoolgirl. 

The manufacturers of the world think we need remote controls to operate window air conditioners, microwave ovens, etc.; the toilet is the only thing that hasn't been digitized and accorded its own remote control.

I really was getting close to flipping into Howard Beal mode in front of the coffee makers at Walmart. Just then I saw a magnificent vision in front of me: a coffee maker about the right size with a single button that needed to be pushed. A single button! How beautiful it is for a machine to understand its role in the Universe...to be imbued with an absolute clarity of perception...a metaphysical Unity of Purpose. I bought it.

Once it was home, my bubble burst: the taste of the coffee wasn't so great. But I won't throw it away. I just want to look at it.

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