SURFEIT TO BE TIED: We're lucky, I know. It's easier than it used to be to write a letter, take a picture, have a phone call, get a good cup of coffee, get the background facts on a fake news anchor, research a brief, find a dentist, and map a car trip. Our food, cars, malls, and children's music are better than what our parents had, and we watch better TV on better TVs. I love the choices we have.
And yet, if you don't get to choose, it's not a choice. What's driving me crazy now is that everybody has adopted the Microsoft Windows model of bundling everything together and making you take it all. Sometimes, as with Windows, I could care less. I don't see the marginal cost of the bells and whistles, and I'm capable of uninstalling the AOL and Symantec offers, so I'm okay.
Not so okay with one electronic feature, though: the camera. I have a phone/PDA that's about a year old, but it only comes with a camera. Now, I have a perfectly good digital camera that I like and use, so I don't need one on my phone. So don't use it, you say? I don't. But that still doesn't stop the US Marshals at the Central District of California from telling me to leave my phone -- and now my laptop, standard camera included -- in the car, because cameras are not allowed. Grrr.
Another, more low-tech example. I'm a white dress-shirt kind of guy. I like what I think of as the standard white dress shirt: white, with buttons. Given my druthers, I prefer the buttons to be thick with smooth edges, the collar to be stitched close to the end (to avoid the stitches looking like piping), and a breast pocket on the left side, but I am a reasonable man, and I'm willing to compromise on these things. Yet a trip through Bloomingdale's and Macy's today revealed not a single qualifying shirt in my size without unwanted bells and whistles: stripes galore, white-on-white herringbone patterns, spread collars, double-button collars (what the hell?), french cuffs, tuxedo fronts. I guess the only people buying dress shirts these days are mafia lawyers and NBA players.
Maybe someday there will be a Dell (or, if you prefer, a Build-a-Bear) for phones, and maybe I can find a tailor to make me the sartorial equivalent of roue for a reasonable price. Just seems like a waste to me that a guy can't find what he needs unless it's glued to something he doesn't need.
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