There are so many cool things you can buy for your house these days. You can literally make a house “smart”, even if you may not be the sharpest implement in the drawer yourself – I say this with kindness, as I will freely admit that I once tried to adjust the temperature of my home from my phone and ended up ordering thermostats from Amazon.
I prefer to shop personally for the smaller, more electronic gadgetry for the home. I’m a wannabe gadget guy to begin with, ever since my Grade 11 electronics classes. I’ve long enjoyed the thrill of discovering some new space-age toy for the home. Stores like The Sharper Image introduced me to the vibrating carrot peeler I couldn’t bear to live without in my kitchen. The stitches come out tomorrow, thanks for asking!
And who doesn’t find the convenience of an alarm clock that projects three-foot LED numbers of the current time onto your bedroom ceiling, while waking you up to the dulcet tones of heavy metal guitar solos every morning?
Not too long ago, I bought a home security camera to provide updates while my wife and I travelled. It can tell us (via notifications) if the air quality is abnormal, if intruders have stormed the property or if I’ve absentmindedly left a fan oscillating right in front of it. I spent an evening recently deleting hours of video captured from that wise decision.
A household innovation I’ve always fancied one of those swanky mahogany pant presses you see advertised in finer Costco catalogues. You know, the wooden and brass ones that look like a really tall magazine rack, but you leave your pants there and overnight – they become pressed! A modern-day miracle of pant technology, but the prohibitive part for me for years had always been the price point.
Well, we’ve had one in the home for a few weeks now, although it isn’t so much mahogany and brass as it is tubular steel and plastic. Still, it does the job admirably, plus has extra areas to hang shirts and store a convenient bottled water and it even features a timer and a place to keep my i-pod when it’s not in my pocket. In the store they called it a treadmill, but it looks just like a futuristic version of the pant press to me.
My wife would prefer if I embraced something she considers more “necessary” for the home, like a floor lamp that’s more attractive than my vintage 1972 leopard-print issue. Ha, I say! This old lamp of mine is so old it’s new again, just like my clog-heel shoes. Yet she hopes to go shopping this weekend, to find a lamp that doesn’t have faux pearls dangling along the bottom of the shade. Some people just can’t embrace retro.
Just think of how so many common household items have changed over the years and maybe you’ll appreciate my ardour for gadgetry a bit more. Back in olden times, you had to churn your own ice cream. Now you can get a Blackened Decker Ice Cream Fabricator 3000 that even a child can use – at least a child will show you how to use it.
In the not-so-distant-past, families had to drive to the corner store for a jug of milk, relying solely on memory and instinct. Now, that very same corner store comes to virtual 3D life, through the full-colour screen of your SUV’s onboard navigational system. Even driving in the dark, you can’t help but find the store!
You’ll never want for milk again.
More on this topic another time. I just grabbed the latest Canadian Tire catalogue from the mail and I see a three-step dumpling press – I didn’t even know my dumplings needed pressing!
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
