Technology Fails Me

If you have ever eaten dinner with children, you know that they are ready to get up from the table about five minutes after they start - usually about the time you are sitting down to eat. Last night was not much different, so we loaded up the DVD player with Snow White to keep them occupied while the adults tried to enjoy a little food, conversation, and wine.

About forty-five minutes in, the audio out of the DVD player quit. Then, in the course of troubleshooting the problem, the display screen on the front also stopped working. The player is, in the words of Weatherford, Oklahoma mortician "Stony" Lockstone, "dead, dead, dead."

One thing that bothers me (other than the obvious "having a ten-month old piece of equipment that doesn't work") is that it just isn't economical to repair. I would rather fix it, but Toshiba's service centers want $40 just to look at the thing. I can run over to (insert discount retailer here) and pick a new one up for about $10 more. I may chafe at the "disposable nature of our society," but in the end I'm voting with my wallet, adding a box full of non-biodegradable plastic and electronics to the landfill in the process.

Did I mention how upset the kids were that the movie was interrupted? By some stroke of luck, they had picked one of the few movies that we have on both DVD and VHS, so I rolled the backup tape and restored peace. For a few minutes, at least.