Life throws you all kinds of challenges, like turning lights on and off yourself
We suffered a near tragedy in the Johnson household this week. For nearly two days, we were without a couple of “smart plugs” that allow us to tell our Alexa device to turn on and off the living room and bedroom lights.
The problem began when we stepped even further into the modern world by cutting out cable. The only reason we had cable was because we — OK, I — got mad at our satellite provider over its prices and anti-customer philosophy. Lately, we’d both gotten mad at the cable company over the same issues and finally decided to go all-in on the streaming services thing.
Well, somewhere in the midst of changing our internet modem, router and Wi-Fi extender to make all these smart miracles happen, the smart plugs got stressed out and quit on us.
“Alexa, turn on the living room light,” my wife said. “ALEXA, TURN ON THE LIVING ROOM LIGHT! Oh no! It’s not working.” Then she put her hand on her forehead and fainted.
While she lay there, I thought that would be a nice, quiet time to reprogram the plugs. Besides, she gets a little impatient while programming things like that through phone apps and doesn’t like to read instructions and messages such as “Do not press this button if you have 2.4-G internet as it will make your house explode.”
“What did that say?” I’d ask.
“I don’t know. I don’t have time for that.”
Even though it was quiet, I still failed. So I ordered new plugs. For two whole days, though, we had to actually put our fingers on the lamps and twist the little knob to turn them on and off — just like the pilgrims had to do when their smart devices, all named Prudence, failed. Of course, that was a long time ago, when they only had 1K internet.
When the four new plugs arrived, I struggled again to program them while my wife contemplated whether life was still worth living. At least, I think that’s what she was contemplating while she lay there on the floor from her fainting spell. It was a real strain to manually turn off those lamps but it was a quiet couple of days.
At last, I got them programmed successfully. I shook my wife awake and informed her that I had conquered technology and pretty much saved the world. In fact, not only were our lamps smart again, but we’ve got a smart plug for a back porch light and for the Christmas tree lights. Yep, no more crawling under the tree to find that plug and yanking it out every night.
By the time the children of today are my age, they’ll probably say things like, “Can you believe Pop and Nana have to tell Alexa to turn off the lamp? How primitive! All we have to do is think about it!”
They’ll all be like J.T. Shrout. You may not know the name, but if you follow SEC football, you probably know about the Tennessee backup quarterback who didn’t understand how to use the sideline phone with its old-fashioned handset and cord. Then again, I may have it backwards. He is in Tennessee, after all, so he might be more used to climbing up a pole to make a phone call on a party line, a la “Green Acres.”
It could be that we’re getting too smart as a society. My wife and I are trailblazers, charging cluelessly into the world of smart plugs, Wi-Fi and cars that are watching your blind spot and keeping it between the lines. Fifty years from now, people our age will be beaming themselves to work 2,000 miles away in a couple of seconds, watching televisions implanted behind their eyelids and lamenting that we only lived to 82 while they’re going to live to 153.
Sometimes I think a simple life in a technology-free shack on the beach — at least until the oceans rise — might be the smartest move we can make. Yes, a simple life, just like the pilgrims and their Prudence devices.
Get more from Chris Johnson at KudzuKid.com.