Time to turn on your brain....me too!

Not sure you can see this very well, but it is a little snowman I built on the hood of our truck yesterday morning.  He lasted about a mile and then sailed off in a flurry of snow and wooden arms.  The photo has nothing to do with this blog; I just thought he was cute and wanted to share him.

A few days ago a friend called me at my cell phone number from his cell phone.  The reception was so poor I could barely hear him and he thought I didn't know him or was angry with him.  I spend all day on the phone at work, and sometimes I can barely hear or understand callers who are using their cell phones. 

It got me to thinking that we are pretty stupid people.

I am old enough to remember when the only phone anyone had was a land line.  And you expected crystal clear connections every time you made or received a call.  Static on the line was unacceptable.  Voices fading in and out was unacceptable.  And dropped calls?  Not tolerated.  Once you were connected you expected to stay connected unless a) one of you hung up, or b) a phone line went down.  Otherwise, there was no acceptable excuse for being disconnected before you hung up.

I am also old enough to remember when there was this room in every house called a kitchen.  It had appliances in it designed to store, prepare, and cook food that was later served in a meal at a table where all of the family members would gather, sit, eat, and enjoy the food and the company.  Sure, there was a certain amount of work involved in the overall preparation and cleanup of the meals, and the quality and quantity of the food in the meals varied, there weren't always a lot of food choices within the meal, and sometimes you were served something that you would rather die than eat (liver and onions with a side of lima beans and mashed potatoes from a box immediately comes to mind).  But overall, the meals I ate at home - whether cooked by Mom, a grandma, or myself - were good meals.

Here's the part about us being stupid....

We have let marketers sell us quite the bill of goods.  We have decided to sacrifice quality for "convenience".  I put convenience in quotation marks for a reason.  As a HUGE fan of my smarter-than-me phone, I love being able to check my emails on breaks at work.  I love being able to make phone calls from my car (hands-free of course, and always paying attention to the road).  I love being able to take a picture and immediately send it to my friends and my "friends" world-wide.  But I lived without all of these things just a few years ago.  My life will not end if I don't check my emails until I get home at night.  I do have the weekend for calling my family in far-off and exotic locations like Miami and Pittsburgh.  And I am not convinced that the world is any better for seeing a photograph of my front yard with snow in it.

Sure, my phone is fun.  Sure, there are times when it makes life easier.  But is it any better when I have conversations that sound like this:  "What?.....Wait, I didn't hear that last bit.....You're breaking up.......Crap, we're heading into a tunnel, so if I lose you I'll call you back on the other side."  Really?  That is considered convenience?  And no, this is not because of my carrier.  I have had two, and the problems are real, regardless of who provides your cell phone service.  Admit it, your cell phone's reception is not as good as that of your land line.  Or at least your pre-VOIP land-line.

And we have accepted the premise that the convenience of frozen food, boxed meals, deli food, fast-food and most restaurant food is the most important factor in choosing our meals.  So what if the food isn't really made the way we like it?  So what if it is five to twenty times more expensive than the cost of making the identical meal at home?  So what if it isn't the healthiest choice available?  We believe that we are busy busy people with too much to do and too little time to do it.  Something has to give, and it sure isn't going to be our favorite TV shows, or our busy after school schedules, or our time on Facebook.  And besides, we are tired, and we worked hard all day, so the last thing we want to do is cook when we get home.  So is it Taco Bell or Applebee's or Papa Murphy's, or Stouffers tonight?

I don't consider myself a Luddite.  I like my technology just fine.  I don't understand it.  I still have to call my son for "tech support"  But I am not advocating throwing out our cell phones and other technology.

And I am not saying that we should stay home and be housewives or househusbands simply to provide cooked meals for our families.

But I am saying that we have bought the marketing hook line, and sinker. 

We don't even think about what we do anymore.  We have become brainwashed into thinking that "convenience" is about being available to anyone and everyone, and having anyone and everything at our fingertips, 24/7.  We believe that we are too busy to be bothered with cooking and that processed and pre-packaged foods taste good enough.  (I will always contend that Mom's spaghetti sauce beats the pants off of Olive Garden any day, and anyone's grilled burgers taste better than Burger King's flame broiled and microwaved burgers)

No, I am not arguing for getting rid of all of this, or even any of it.  I am simply asking us all to think about what we are doing.  To consider our choices.  And then to really make a choice and not allow some really clever marketer to lead us around by our ears, our bellies, and our egos.