Technology, and Other Stupid Things

I bought a digital food timer from Williams Sonoma. It took my roommate and me a half hour to not figure it out. Our conversation was filled with exclamations like, "Hey! I made it do a thing!"

We are not stupid women. We have college degrees. The problem with technology is that it's made by people who think a certain way. It's not made for artists and musicians who think in terms of aesthetics and metaphysics, and who want their food timers to -- oh, I don't know -- keep track of time. I don't want it to count UP. I don't want it to remember the time I used before for a completely different dish. I want it to go when I tell it to go and stop when I want it to stop. I want to feel smarter than the tiny device in my palm. Instead, I just felt like a big stupid lug, left no recourse but to assert myself by causing physical harm to my tormentor. I wanted to break it in half and say, "Hmm, I wonder how much time it will take them to put you back together. Guess we'll never know!"

They should test gadgets on people who don't like gadgets. People who like them will play till they figure it out. You don't need to make things simple for them. But people who want simplicity should be the test audience, because we're the ones who'll dump your fancy-schmancy product for something made of pipe cleaners just so we can work with items we understand.


In other news, another roommate just flew back from Texas. Among the items confiscated from her: anti-bacterial hand gel, concealer makeup, and applesauce. Apparently, if she'd had them in a clear plastic bag -- e.g. a Ziploc -- it would have been OK. But you can't have concealed concealer. She did sneak her lip gloss through by putting it in her pocket. The sheer diabolical genius! The pocket! They'll never think to look there! Turns out, they won't. The good news is that, while harmless blonde Texans are left with germy hands, exposed zits and Vitamin C deficiencies, we'll know the terrorists by the opposite -- they'll be well groomed and smell like Brown Sugar and Fig.