An Eclectic Lifestyle . . . Through the Magic of Electricity

As I sit in my new workroom, bathed by 10 ceiling lights, working at my computer, with a telephone at my side, and an answering machine, my fax machine and two printers standing by, I wonder at what the genius of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison has wrought in our contemporary world.

I neglected to say that also at my side is my modem, by which my work may be sent directly to The Times by telephone.

My room also contains a radio and a globe of the world lighted from within.

Several times during our remodeling project the power has been turned off for a few minutes, and I suddenly was made to realize how dependant we are on electricity.

It was only a century ago that the electric light began to appear in our nation’s cities, replacing the gas lamp. It was at about the same time that the telephone began to proliferate, and Edison popularized the word hello .

(When Britain’s Parliament was urged to adopt the telephone, those worldly gentlemen scoffed that America might need such a gadget but that London did not, since it had plenty of messenger boys.)

Like most of my contemporaries, I grew up with the telephone and the electric light; but the computer and its accessory gadgets are relatively new on the scene.

In the disruption of our house by remodeling I have suddenly come face to face with the electrification of our life. The number of machines, gadgets and toys that have to be plugged into the dozens of wall outlets is incredible.

To entertain us we have three television sets, a phonograph and AM-FM radio, a compact disc player and two speakers. We have six telephones, including one that is portable.

Our so-called work-saving machines include a washer-dryer, a dishwasher and a vacuum cleaner. We have three refrigerators, an automatic garage door that is operated by a genie, and an automatic pool filtering system.

In the kitchen we have a toaster, an automatic coffee maker, a Cuisinart food processor and an electric range; but since the range has been virtually replaced by the microwave, it hardly counts.

There is no point in counting all the electric lights we have, but it must be more than 100, including numerous floor and table lamps and outdoor lights.

My wife seems especially addicted to electricity. She is always poring over the catalogues and finding some electrical gadget we don’t have and don’t need. She, for example, bought the modem and fax machine, both of which I resisted.

I must admit, however, that both have proved very useful. I don’t know now how I ever got along without the modem. Either I had to drive my column to the paper or my wife had to drop it off on her way to work. Actually, I think she bought the modem to save her that trouble.

I am also suspicious about the electric foot warmers she bought me for Christmas. They are a pair of slippers that plug into a wall outlet. I doubt that I will use them, but I noticed that the other night when we were watching television my wife slipped her feet into them. “My feet are cold,” she explained. Her feet are almost always cold.

I forgot to mention that each of us has an electric toothbrush. I doubt that either Bell or Edison, in their wildest fancies, ever contemplated an electric toothbrush.

Our latest gadget is an intercom set designed to permit my wife and me to communicate when she is in her bedroom and I am in my new workroom in the new wing--or vice versa. The two places are separated by four rooms and two hallways and it impossible to hear each other even when we shout. Our sons and daughters-in-law gave us this gadget for Christmas. It consists of two receiver-speaker boxes, each of which must be plugged in. We have only used it once, so far, to see if it worked. It did. However, it doesn’t appear that we are likely to have that much to say to each other.

The last straw is strictly my wife’s doing. She has finally bought herself a car telephone. She had wanted one for two or three years, but I was against it. I said it was too expensive and she didn’t need it.

But I weakened at Christmas. I looked into it and found, as I suspected, that it was too expensive. However, I told her I had thought of getting her one. She took that as approval and went out and bought one for herself.

“Thanks for the Christmas present,” she told me blithely.

So far, she hasn’t phoned me on it. I wonder if it’s going to turn out like the intercom.