You know what? I’m sick of the world telling me how to simplify my life and miniaturize my possessions, or in some cases, make my possessions disappear altogether.
Daughter #1 is a Spotify Disciple, and says there’s no way she’d ever want want our massive compact disc collection after we’re … you know, dead … because there soon won’t even be any way to play these antiques. And besides, she can already find all this stuff on Spotify!
Never mind that we already spent vast sums converting our music to CDs from cassette tapes and vinyl on the promise that we would have CDs forever because they’re so hard to damage.

Same thing with pictures and movies. Just recently, we paid to have our old home movies converted from tape to CD so our kids would have them forever. But it seems the thing now is that the movies need to be on a thumb drive or some other device so they can be streamed wirelessly to the computer or television.
Books? Who needs ’em? We can just put the whole library on a Kindle, which, if you’re into dictionaries, you already know means to set alight or burn.
Meanwhile, my wife has been spending countless hours scanning old photographs and sending them by e-mail to the kids, who may or may not be saving them in some kind of ethereal cloud, from which they will surely disappear one day with a puff of smoke that smells like grandpa’s ashes.
New technology always makes our lives better — except for when it doesn’t, and something I saw at work the other day tipped me right over the edge. But before I tell you about it, please have a look at my refrigerator and freezer:

Just look at those those antiques! You can barely see those out-of-date white appliances (haven’t opted-in yet on stainless steel) because they’re so cluttered with family photographs and (gasp) refrigerator magnets! There’s also a shopping list, and even a sample ballot from our upcoming primary election (I know its old-fashioned, but we vote … ALWAYS).

To me, our kitchen appliances give the place that lived-in look, and it’s always nice to have a gander at the grandkids before popping out a bag of frozen peas. But why should we live with such an unsightly mess when, for the paltry sum of $5,553, we can buy a new stainless steel refrigerator/freezer with a digital touchscreen that can display a calendar, notes, digitized photographs, and whatever else we can dream up?
Yeah, a touchscreen refrigerator is just what we need, but while we’re saving up the money, perhaps you’ll forgive me if I insert some different music into my car’s old-timey CD changer and head on over to the dollar store, which in a different era might have been called a five-and-dime. I need to buy a few new refrigerator magnets!
$5500! Holy shit. You can buy a lotta refrigerator magnets with that.
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Amen!
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We’re comfortable and happy with the way we live. That’s good enough for me. Love you, old geezer.
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So you don’t want me to order the touchscreen fridge?
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Nope! A new iPad though….
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No problem!
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I think fridges are meant to be plastered with family photos, postcards from faraway and magnets 🙂 Love yours! I’m going the digitizing route too but I also worry that whatever cloud or external drive I save all my stuff in will disappear! So, my backups are hardcopies LOL Defeats the purpose but who cares? I don’t! 😀
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The vast majority of my music has indeed been copied into my iTunes, but I’m keeping the CDs because as soon as I got rid of them, I know what would happen. Old(er) people are smart that way!
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I had cassettes and had to throw them away because I didn’t have any more cassette players at home. AND I couldn’t find any stores that sells cassette players…
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Before cassettes, I had an 8-track player!
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Before cassettes, I was a baby so no chance of having an 8-track player 🙂
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Go ahead, rub it in that you’re younger than I!
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At least I owned cassettes. I’ve spoken to folks who’ve never even seen a real life cassette 😦
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I spent vast sums of money re-printing a box full of photographs gone bad due to mold and now they tell me I should scan it all and upload it. I did do some and now it’s vanished from some drive or it’s floating about somewhere in space entertaining the martians or some such aliens…btw your CD collection (like your library) is pretty awesome!
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Ah, that would be funny, Dahlia, if it wasn’t so sad! I fear all the old photos we’ve tried to pass to the next generation will soon vanish into a digital wasteland.
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Yea…
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I solve the problem by rarely listening when ‘the world’ tells me what to do! I like my vintage and antique pix of the ancestors, my CDs, my books. Nothing will be going to any cloud! I don’t need a computerized frig. Of course, if it did the housecleaning I might be more inclined 😉 Your frig looks great!
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Since the world has a limited number of things that each person wants, the secret is to get us to buy the same things over and over again, but in different forms!
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I like hard copies of things. i like the feel of paper. Only use my Kindle on planes. i don’t know how to digitalize and don’t care to learn. i can barely deal with my sewing machine, it’s too needy. Better off with a needle and thread.
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Soon there will be a digital needle and thread that will make it even easier!
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I recently purchased a turntable and added some vinyl to my music collection. I love Spotify, but I also like the intimacy of putting on a record.
It’s an alluring thought, but the truth is, our kids really aren’t going to want our old shit.
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I’m sure you’re right. They’ll wish they had it after it’s already too late.
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A digital refrigerator?! *clutches head*
I had the touching belief that I was fairly up to date, but that is a whole other level…
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It’s at least one level past where I’m willing to go!
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It’s crazy how fast technology moves! I remember getting rid of shelves full of VHS tapes when DVDs happened, then getting rid of all the DVDs when everything could fit on a hard drive. We don’t even have anything in the house to play a DVD on any more.
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I know, that’s how it is now. Once you decide to just keep whatever you have, that’s when you become a geezer!
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