It started with good intentions, of course. I kept power cords, connection cords, extra lengths of coaxial cable, cubes…because, you know, you might need them. Could be really important. Right?
But then they kept changing the connections. I have no idea what those connections were even called. There was USB, right? On the TV, there’s HDMI — no idea what those letters stand for. I had the old cords with the multiple-pin ends that you had to screw into the back of computers and printers. I had the cords with the red, yellow, white and green plugs, to connect the TV to the VHS, to the DVD, to the speakers. Oh, I also had speakers. And the Alexas, and the Google Alexas, whatever they’re called. I think I had a modem or a router, too.
You never know, you know? Might need ‘em!
But of course I also never had the key connection cords when I needed them, so I ended up buying more of the damn things for $37 at the convenience store on I-70. Highway robbery. But at this point I can’t even drive the car without the phone, so…no option. The highway robbers know this.
This is how I ended up over the weekend with a trash bag full of connection cords. For grins I weighed it: 13 pounds, twice the size of the biggest pike I’ve ever landed. I still kept two small boxes of them, probably a couple dozen, with the connections that we still use. The ones I threw out hadn’t been used for a decade, and something tells me the charging ports they were made to fill aren’t ever coming back.
Planned obsolescence, they call it.
My term for it: Infuriating.
They make things that break, or go out of date, on purpose. They want you to buy more, to be forced to update. Absolutely burns my britches.
At my parents’ house, I unloaded hundreds of VHS tapes and DVDs. I haven’t listened to vinyl albums in 35 years. I threw out all those Maxell tapes I spent hours compiling. I have trapper-keepers full of CDs I never listen to, because now you’re supposed to stream everything, although of course you have to pay again. Come to think of it, I don’t even use the songs I bought on iTunes anymore. I’ve probably bought “Born in the USA” six or seven times, and I’ve owned “Caddyshack” in every possible format.
The laptop I’m writing this column on: Too old to update the system software, which means I can’t update my personal-finance software, which means I have to buy a new one. This thing will end up in a dump somewhere, even though it works fine.
I’d assume there’s an island in the Indian Ocean somewhere composed entirely of charging cords. Do we need new charging cords? No, of course we don’t. But we have to buy them, because, well, the gizmo-makers need to shake us down.
It did feel good to get rid of all those cords. Sort of unclogging the arteries, or something. Lightening the load.
But does it have to be this way? There’s not a lot I can do about it, other than to vent to you here, to put the thoughts out into the vapor, to make a, uhh, connection, if you’ll pardon the term. Maybe somebody, a K-State engineer, is reading this who could some day do something about it.
