4/6/99

Technologically Haunted House

My new electrical appliances don't relate to electricity -- though my daughter's finger does.

    O give me a home where the buffalo roam, and I'd wallow most happily in all the low-tech drek.
    I moved recently, and had to buy a houseful of appliances, gadgets and electronic wizardry. I should be excited to have all these new possessions, to own the latest generation of high-technology. I'm not. Even the old faithfuls I brought with me seem bent on electrosuicide.
    F'rinstance.
    I bought a second-hand fridge. It came with a free bonus, bugs. Little, skittery unmentionables that

I HAD written that much of this column, precisely those words, when the most amazing thing happened: what I wrote -- half in jest -- came true.
    You have to believe me: it really happened.
    The very computer I was writing it on -- the greatest of all my old faithfuls, upon which every word had been written throughout my career as a columnist -- died. It just seized up and stopped working. Electrosuicide.
    For 11 years I clung to this great old relic, and half a minute after I joked about its health, it responded by dying.
    Freaky.
    Anyway, that helps make the point. My new house is technologically haunted.
    (If a ghost suddenly appears in the next half-minute, I'm giving up this subject.)
    As I was saying, my fridge: there's a jar of preserves, loaded with preservatives, and it went bad. Makes you wonder, no?
    The fridge was a bargain, and I got what I paid for. It claims to be a Tadiran, but it turned out to be a westinghouse: a house for comfortably westing cockwoaches. Well. I called in the army, and they did no less a job than Assad in Hama. Wiped 'em out.
    While they were here, they should have pointed a gun at it and yelled "Freeze!" Because it doesn't.
    The computer does, though. That's the new one I had to buy 10 paragraphs ago. And that's the crux of this issue: Bill Gates had all these years to improve on my old relic, but new is not always improved. If I made a mistake on the old one, it would politely flash "incorrect data" and let me try again. This one? "FATAL ERROR!"; "YOU HAVE PERFORMED AN ILLEGAL OPERATION!"; "THIS APPLICATION HAS VIOLATED SYSTEM INTEGRITY!" "YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING SINCE YOUR LAST SAVE!" "SHUT DOWN!" And I haven't even done anything wrong.
    I bought a Microsoft mouse, brand new. It worked fine, but backwards; you move it to the left, and the arrow moves to the right. I called Microsoft in Tel Aviv, and again, and again. Take my advice: don't bother calling Microsoft in Tel Aviv.
    I bought a fax, brand new. It was retarded. If you tried to call me, it thought you were a piece of paper to be transmitted, and cut off our conversation; a fax transmission it would mistake for a kettle, and refuse to accept it.
    I must say, though, the shop where I bought it, Lior, kindly took it off my hands and replaced it with a machine I can only praise.
    I bought a food processor. It wouldn't do carrots. I don't know why.
    I bought a clothes dryer. It works fine if I stand there and keep my finger on the button.
    I bought a washing machine. It works fine unless the dryer is on, because together they conspire to knock out the electricity in the entire house.
    I called Bezeq to instal an additional phone outlet. The technician came, and he said "tsk, tsk." Couldn't do it, he said. He tapped on all the walls, shook his head forlornly and asked if I could possibly move out. The problem, he explained, is that Bezeq rules forbid the use of a certain type of clip to hold the wiring in place, so he'd be breaking the law if he gave me a phone line where I needed it, which made as much sense to me as it does now to you. But, he said, if I paid him personally to do the job after hours, he would not be restricted by Bezeq's rules. Now it made sense.
    I bought a picture, I nailed it into the wall. It fell (the picture, AND the wall).
    I had to have my camera repaired, and the TV, VCR and videocamera. My new non-stick pan sticks to everything. Inexplicably, my favorite pants don't fit me anymore.
    A myriad of electrical shmontzes no longer relates to electricity -- an adapter, blender, light fixtures -- which makes you wonder if I've been left off the National Grid. But my daughter confirmed we're getting it, when her finger succeeded where all these devices failed. Ouch.
    And it's not just things you plug in to the wall: I won't mention my sex life since I began living here, but you could just imagine.
    My printer plays music better than my tape deck. Also the toilet, which whistles melodiously.
    The stove-top has a quaint idiosyncracy: when I turn on a second burner it goes BOOM! Come on over and I'll show you: it happens every time.
    Is it me? Am I cursed?
    I understand the concept of built-in obsolescence, but these are brand-spanking-new things, or newly repaired, or ever-faithful. I mean, even the sun don't shine here anymore, since I moved in.
    I really believe things should last longer, though I know it would be bad for the Japanese economy, not to mention the fellowship of Israeli repairmen.
    I remember a news story, many years ago, that confirmed our darkest suspicions of built-in obsolescence. A lady wrote a letter to a major American light-bulb manufacturer. Her porch light had finally had it, after 26 years of dependable service. Her letter was meant to commend their product -- but they responded with a form letter explaining that the bulb was faulty, because it had too much filament, and for that reason it lasted too long. And they sent her a free replacement!
    Boggles the mind.
    The opposite, I suppose, is what happened at a car-repair shop opposite The Jerusalem Post. This I saw with my own eyes: a car got not three meters out of the place when its wheel fell off.
    That's the sort of thing that's been happening to me in my new home.
    Not that I'm complaining, you understand. I've learned to live with it. So I don't use the blender. If I want to freeze something, I use the toaster oven. I had the pants taken out. The dryer works better as a table. Sex is overrated anyway.
    And I never have to worry about anything rusting away.