I have a two-year old grandson who loves to takes things apart. If he can smash them, even better. My mother tells me that when I was his age I unscrewed the door to our refrigerator and when my father went to open it, the door came off in his hand. Of course, our refrigerator wasn’t a stainless steel Frigidaire with 23 cubic feet of space, an ice maker, individual tray lighting, and a digital dashboard on the front, but you get the idea.
So there I was driving along in my new car, which is to say new to me, since it is a 2014 model, with my grandson strapped in his car seat in the back as if riding in a space shuttle, when a warning light flashed on and the car started ping-ping-pinging.
Now, I hate pinging. I hate dinging. The most important thing I look for when shopping for anything other than food is what I call the “Nagging Factor.” This has to do with the number of pings, dings, or beeps the device makes. The higher the factor, the less likely I am to buy it. I don’t care where in the “customer journey” (thank you, Marketing Dept.) I am.
I once walked away from a salesman showing me a microwave oven, because it not only beeped five times to tell you it was done but continued beeping every minute thereafter until either you opened the door or went at it with a golf club. I’m sure the store had a policy about whacking their merchandise with a golf club, so I just walked away. I don’t really play golf, anyway.
Back in the car, I noticed that the dash indicated an open door. It was on my grandson’s side. Apparently, he had reached over and opened the door as I was driving down the road. Bless his heart. Frantically, I tried to lock his door but only succeeded in turning on the windshield wipers and defrost at full blast. Another button tucked in my side view mirror, which I didn’t even know it could do. I pulled over, parked under a tree, and did the one thing I hate doing with anything new. I read the owner’s manual.
Fifteen minutes later we were back on the road ready to take on the world of electricity although not before getting lost trying to find McDonald’s. Yes, the car comes with navigation but that may require a how-to video. That reminds me of the Starbuck’s video I had to watch a dozen times before figuring out how to make a cappuccino.
I say the world of electricity because that’s exactly what I was up against. Everything is electric nowadays or, worse, electronic. What’s the difference? The refrigerator door I took apart was electric. It wasn’t like the icebox in The Honeymooners. The Frigidaire with a digital dashboard? That’s electronic. And when things go electronic, mechanical goes out the window. That includes a power window.
You see this clearly with modern cars. Long before my car, BMW had completed the transition from mechanical to electronic. Today, their cars run on computerized systems and dozens of sensors. Unfortunately, this transition included going from metal to plastic. Everything from hoses and fans to bumpers and radiators are now plastic. Why? Because they’re cheaper to make that way. What happens when they’re cheaper to make? They’re easier to break. Did you know that car dealers make more money servicing cars than selling them? As they say on Twitter, let that sink in.
I have myself to blame. No one forced me to buy the X1, which is a small SUV eponymous with the aircraft Chuck Yeager broke the speed barrier in. How cool is that? But I also will not rant about how the modern world is going, as Archie Bunker once told his wife, Edith, “down the terlet.” I just miss the mechanical because it was simpler. And–let’s declare this with neither shame nor fear–simpler is better. Aquinas described God as pure simplicity.
I love my car. I love the way it looks, the way it handles, the way it sits at the curb waiting to whisk me away on a whim. I just have to read the owner’s manual and make sure the car seat is secure before I go. That’ll be another battle in the Car Wars.
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