Well, I got a laptop for for Christmas. It’s got all the bells and whistles on it. I wish it didn’t because the ones I don’t need only confuse and confiscate me when I’m trying to accomplish simple tasks like using the word processor.

When you make as many literally mistakes as I do the W.P. saves a lot on ink and erasers. To my way of thinking they built the pencil backwards. I should have a half inch barrel and a nine inch eraser to compensate for my innate deficiency.

The damn pen runs out of ink right in the middle of my train of thought which is to me like running out of bullets in a gun fight. The pencil will fade and smear and become illegible before the project reaches the poor, overworked editor.

Making up these lies is enough trouble, but getting them before the public so they can be appreciated is manifold. One of the problems of my world these days is the fact that the engineers, architects and marketers won’t leave well enough alone.

For instance: buy a cell phone. If you’re like me it will take about a month to figure out most of what it’s capable of doing and about a year to actually make it do it. Then when you’ve got it all figured out the damn thang wears out. Maybe insured and/or still under warranty.

So you replace it. No choice in the matter. But when you go get a replacement for “Old reliable” you’ll find that although they manufacture something that resembles it, it don’t behave the same way, and the manual that came with it was compiled by a drunken navigator.

The new one also doesn’t work as well as the old one whenever it was half “wore out.”

The computers are worse (even someone as illiterate as I am can see that) and the automobiles ain’t much better. There is a term for this aggravation called “planned obsolescence.”

That concept has been around since Thomas Edison fabricated a light bulb. You get used to it, you can’t do without it. If you build it too good, it won’t wear out and we won’t have an opportunity to sell that product to the same bunch for a long time.

The trick seems to be for them to chunk out a real good product that will last and go the distance.

Everybody who buys it at that stage will praise it and evoke braggin’ rights and their relatives and neighbors will rush out and buy one.

At that point the buzzards in the marketing department will cheapen the quality of the product by 30 percent and double the cost and all of us dependants will foot the bill.

The fat cats always get fatter, I’ve often heard. Since I’ve never had any close relationships with any fat cats (except for a few I ate below the border in restaurants of dubious quality).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not an anarchist and not really serious about politics since the local elections are under suspicion as well as federal investigation, but somebody in position needs to keep good stuff we poor rednecks need and not gouge us on products that we don’t need but require­ while they get rich on our poverty.

If I was Irish by birth I’d reimigrate even if their was another potato famine. I’ll bet potatoes ain’t changed in appearance or nutritional character in the last two or three years, and they’re not likely to.

I wish a Ford and a Chevy still lasted 10 years like they should, cause the ones made back in the prime of my life I could fix without a damn computer to misadvise me on the “fix.”

Wishin for good ole’days,
Ricky

(Contact Harpole at www.facebook.com/harpolive or www.colespointrecords.com)