For The Love Of Technology

Pam: My boss Archie changes cell phones like I change earrings. He just got the latest and greatest. The leather case I ordered for his last phone hasn’t even arrived yet!

Ann: He loves technology! Most men do.

Pam: It’s strange. It’s always been sort of a running joke that men won’t ask directions. And it’s true. So now all these men, who for their entire lives have claimed to have a remarkable sense of direction, insist they must have a fancy GPS system to guide them around.

Ann: I know! A lady in my chorus told me that her husband ordered a super high-tech GPS and had it installed in their station wagon. Now he programs it to give him directions to the same church, grocery store, and post office he’s driven to every week for fifteen years!

Pam: Archie and I were just in a machine maintenance shop where we know the mechanics pretty well. These guys are old fashioned grease monkeys. But they always love to see Archie coming so they can check out his latest high-tech gadgets.

Ann: I’m sure those guys can’t afford to buy a different phone every month like he does.

Pam: As usual, they all wanted to see Archie’s new phone and asked him a bunch of questions about it. Archie loved it. He was eating it up.

Ann: Of course…In a man’s mind, being admired for his technology is the second biggest compliment he can get!

Pam: I’ve always thought if I could just get Archie to appreciate the calming effects of more low-tech hobbies, he’d be less irritable. So a few months ago Bret and I bought him a big round bird bath. Actually it was sort of a water fountain for his backyard. Bret helped him set up the triple tiered stone fountain and then I planted a bunch of plants around the base.

Ann: That soft sound of water really attracts a lot of birds to the yard. So, how’d he like it?

Pam: He liked it. But he complained that the water just dribbled out the top and gently cascaded to each level below.

Ann: Isn’t that what it’s supposed to do?

Pam: Sure, but it was too tame for Archie. He went to the home improvement store and bought a stronger pump and installed it in place of the one that came with the fountain.

Ann: He souped up the bird bath!?

Pam: Yep. Then he had to go out and buy a new power supply to increase the voltage or something because of the bigger pump. A couple of days later he figured out that required a bigger fuse because the new power supply was drawing so much electricity that it kept overwhelming the circuit.

Ann: I’ve heard of those shows where they ‘make over’ a guy’s car or truck, but a backyard fountain?

Pam: This thing that originally had water gently cascading out of a hole in the top of a stone orb, was now shooting water fifteen feet in the air!

Ann: You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s crazy.

Pam: I know. It was spraying so high that most of the water falling back down didn’t even make it into the round tiers below. So then he was loosing water so he had to do some plumbing to bring a source of water to the fountain to keep the level up.

Ann: Only Archie! So much for introducing him to the pleasures of low technology.

Pam: I’m telling you…I keep picturing little birds landing on the edge of that fountain and the water shooting them into the air, knocking them beak over feet, their feathers being blasted right off their little bodies. Poor things!

Ann: Or worse, being electrocuted by the world’s only high voltage bird bath!