A Life Full of Gadgets and Appliances

By

Leigh Spencer

Yet another catalogue arrives in the mail. It is full of all those gadgets you just can not do without. Or so the catalogue tells you. The television adverts also try and persuade you to buy the latest, greatest. Even sites on the internet are a full of pop up adverts that are trying to sell you something.

Some people just can not resist buying these gadgets. My father-in-law is one such person; he just loves gadgets, even if they only last for a day. Last year my in-laws moved, after living in the same house for thirty years. Unfortunately, we were not witness to him having to go through all his gadgets and have to decide which he was going to keep and which he was going to get rid of. It wasn’t so much a case of their new home didn’t have as much room as their old home, but more a case of how many removal trucks would they need.

Please don’t get me wrong, I love gadgets as much as the next person. I particularly love those ones that you buy thinking that they might work, but then turn out even better than you thought possible. To be perfectly honest I do research each item before buying, from electric toothbrushes through to the largest household appliances.

To sales people, my husband and I must be the most frustrating people in the world. We go into the store with our computer printout in hand and say, “Do you have this item in stock; no we are not interested in any other, just this one.”

There are just so many gadgets and appliances that we are told that will make our lives easier. Some of them do until they fail or break, then we either dispose of it or try and get it repaired. Unfortunately, the cost of the repair is more expensive than buying a replacement. In many ways I am like my father-in-law, I also don’t like getting rid of things. It concerns me that many times we have no option but to throw things away. In many ways our family is lucky, not least is that my husband is an engineer. Some people are born engineers, according to my mother-in-law my husband was repairing things from a very early age. He has over the years repaired many a gadget and small appliance, keeping them going when you would think you would need to go out and purchase another item.

Nowadays we have many more options to recycle, but what about in the past, when recycling wasn’t available. How many landfill sites are full of broken unrepairable gadgets and even small appliances?

We read about archaeological sites revealing the treasures of the past coins, jewelry, pots and pans, glass jars and vases, tools, the items of everyday life.

Are the archaeological digs of the future going to find our discarded gadgets and appliances? Is this going to be our legacy to future generations?