A new year beckons new resolutions. At the risk of sounding like a stubborn old relic who resists change, I resolve to have only the following resolution: to stay resolute against all modern-day pressures to upgrade my life.
The pressures come from everywhere. Like the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I dare not sleep for fear of waking up and having my brain transformed -- where I become an automaton succumbing to all the advertisements that demand I buy a new monster-sized 89-inch 3-D TV offering some 250 channels.
Then there’s the obnoxious “MyPillow” guy who seems to be hawking his merchandise on TV night and day. I always want to turn the channel when he’s boasting about his upgraded luxury pillows that use “actual live human testing” to guarantee you’ll sleep like a baby. You have to wonder what kind of human testing the MyPillow guy actually uses. Are the humans drugged? When I see the MyPillow guy, especially in his alternative life as a Donald Trump sycophant, I feel like stuffing his pillows over his mouth to shut him up.
It's not just television that warns me that I’m behind the times. The other day in my apartment elevator, my neighbor laughed when he saw me with my flip phone. He claimed he hadn’t seen one of those “antiques” flipped open since the last time he saw me on my Walkman radio--when I was listening to the Bee Gees’ disco hit “Stayin’ Alive.”
“They still make those things?” I thought he said -- although I’m not sure he was talking to me because he was talking into a wire, apparently to somebody else.
Call me old school, a luddite if you wish. But I distrust hearing people say all the new technology is what will bring added joy and meaning to my life. Like the time I went to an electronics store and asked to buy a tape recorder. The young salesperson working the floor suppressed a laugh as if tape recorders are from medieval times. He asked me to wait while he went to search for one and returned with what he suggested was the closest thing: an MP3 player. I won’t get into how long it took to figure out how it might work before he told me the MP3 players are also out of date. What I should get, he said, is an iPod. Maybe I will, someday. But because it’s easier to live in the past, I’d still be happier with a tape recorder.
I know I’m not the only one resisting supposed upgrades. For instance, my next-door neighbor still has, like me, the daily newspaper delivered to his door each morning. He finds the news more satisfying to read when he can hold it in his hand rather than navigating to find it on an app. Maybe he should have been on the same bus I used to ride to work each morning, where I was the only passenger holding a newspaper, rather than scanning a smartphone. Even the bus driver looked at me funny.
I’m not alone in resisting the need to upgrade. My friend, Dave, for instance, doesn’t risk his life obsessively checking his smartphone while not paying attention to cars about to run him over at an intersection.
I must give Dave credit when I joined him and his brother for dinner at a restaurant. His brother, a social media freak, was constantly checking his smartphone for the latest stock quotes and sports scores, rather than joining our conversation, boring as it might have been about how things seemed better in the old days. Dave’s hardly the violent type. But to quote him exactly, he turned to his brother and said, “I’d like to throw that phone of yours against the wall."
Of course, I’m also not always able to resist temptation. Just as we were in the middle of conversation at that same dinner, my flip phone rang. I felt the need to take the call, thinking it might be important. It turned out to be a cable TV company, offering an even lower rate for its services, which was followed almost immediately by another caller offering what he claimed was a “ridiculously cheap special” on an iPhone 16 Pro.
The one place I wouldn’t mind an upgrade is on an airplane. I could enjoy a so-called “comfort seat.” Of course, you have to spend more money to get enough “rewards” points to qualify for one. Call me cheap. But I prefer saving money sitting in coach, where to symbolize my station in life, they give you just a bag of peanuts.
Which brings me to Costco. I’ve yet to join. Not even if, with a $65 “Gold Star” yearly membership fee, I can get free carrot and celery sticks, ravioli, a slice of pizza, and a bargain price loading up on so many reams of toilet paper it might fit into a tractor-trailer.
I haven’t joined Costco, not because as Groucho Marx said, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” No, I haven’t joined because I do just fine with my free discount card at a regular grocery store. Even if I’m missing out at Costco, where I’m entitled to a free hot dog if I buy enough of their paper towels.
Driving home one day, I passed a Costco where traffic was at a standstill for at least a mile – supposedly, they were offering free samples of gluten-free sausage balls with cream cheese, and red velvet mini-cakes.
Forget about the $65-a-year membership and what goes with it. What about an upgrade if I bought Costco’s $130-a-year Executive Membership? What would I get with that? Maybe two free hot dogs -- along with free mustard and relish?
Author Bio:
Eric Green, a Highbrow Magazine contributor, is a former newspaper reporter, U.S. congressional press aide, English-as-a-second-language teacher, and now a freelance writer in the Washington D.C. area. His articles have appeared in various newspapers and websites, including the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun.
For Highbrow Magazine
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