Poor Richard’s Almanac

GRRRRRRR. Once upon a time, things were built to last. Or that’s how the story goes. People bought something once, and if it broke, they fixed it or got someone to fix it, then used it ’til it broke again, then got it fixed again, and on and on. Clearly, this was the Golden Age of Consumers, back in the dawn of time before some evil genius figured out that if something broke and the owner couldn’t get it fixed, they’d have to buy another one. And when that one broke, another one. And on, and on, and on, and on, and…

Planned obsolescence, that grease of the modern capitalist wheel, was born. And because it’s a lot easier to take something (and its replacement parts) out of production, or build it cheaply so it quickly falls apart, than to invest in the creation and promotion of entirely new products, or, say, try to find a less wasteful and appalling way to keep our economic boat afloat, manufacturers embraced planned obsolescence as though it were the Second Coming, bringing salvation (for them, anyway) in its wake. 

Our friend Ben is especially ticked off about this since I’ve encountered three examples of it in the past two days. First, poor Silence Dogood was returning from the Friday Night Supper Club, held at a friend’s house in such an obscure area that it makes our cottage home, Hawk’s Haven, in the precise middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, look like it’s on a city street, when she had a flat as in shredded tire. At 10:30 at night. And her g-d cell phone once again had failed to hold charge so she couldn’t call AAA. Riding on the rim, she managed to pull into a restaurant lot where, by some miracle, the owners were still present, and they were kind enough to let her use their phone to call for help. Our friend Ben was out of town at the time, and I shudder to think what would have happened if that restaurant hadn’t still been open!

Now, it seems to us that Silence just got this cell phone to replace her original archaic model because, ironically, she wanted one that was easier to use in an emergency situation when one’s nerves would presumably be shot and one’s wits in disarray. (Yes, we’re Luddites, and no, we don’t use a cell phone for idle chatter, but damned if our friend Ben would let Silence drive around in our rural part of the world without the means to call for help in an emergency. To us, this is the reason cell phones exist, and we are grateful… or, at least, we would be grateful, if they actually worked when needed.) And this was not the first time the phone had failed Silence in her hour of need, despite the fact that she charges it religiously and never uses it except for emergencies.

So off we went to the store where we’d purchased it to get a replacement battery. Oh, right. “We don’t have that. We haven’t carried that phone in a year and a half.” (Mind you, that would have been precisely, to the second, a year and a half after we bought it. Unbelievable.) “But you can get this other model free for a two-year extension of your plan…” Great. There were still 6 months to run on our original plan, since, after all, we’d bought the “new” phone a year and a half ago. Which means that when this even newer phone breaks down, there’ll be a year to run. At this rate, we’ll soon be looking at a lifetime of extensions on obsolescent phones.

Our paper shredder had also broken down over the weekend, so we went to an office supply store after our trip to the phone store. Mind you, at Hawk’s Haven, the paper shredder does more than prevent identity theft. It provides nesting material for our chickens. Our friend Ben and Silence loved our paper shredder. But of course, you can’t fix the damned thing. We came home with a new and even more expensive paper shredder, and reluctantly trashed the shredder part of the old one, donating the bottom part to a friend who needed an office trash can.

Then there’s our larger aquarium. We have 6- and 12-gallon aquariums built by Marineland under their Eclipse brand, and they’re fantastic. But they have a unique hood system, and the fluorescent bulb setup on our larger tank ended up with a loose connection: no more light. Our friend Ben frankly doesn’t know how the fish, shrimp, and snails feel about being plunged into comparative darkness, but I do know how the aquatic plants feel: They hate it. And so do we. So our friend Ben went on the Marineland website to see if I could order a replacement bulb setup, only to find that the Eclipse System 12 aquarium now uses a different fluorescent setup. Aaaaarrrggghhh!!!

I suppose this means that we’ll now have to buy an entirely new aquarium in order to replace our hood so we can actually provide our fish, plants, shrimp, and snails with adequate light. And needless to say, these aquariums aren’t cheap. Anything but. It’s enough to make us regret that we didn’t just buy the basic glass rectangle and mini-shop light setup we’d both had as children, instead of this wonderful new system that looks good and works fabulously—until something goes wrong and you can’t get replacement parts. Stupid us. Stupid them. Poor fish, plants, shrimp, and snails.

Our friend Ben laments this disaster spiral our economic system has created. It’s one thing to create new fashions and fashionable items every season, so those who are inclined to do so can purchase the new and to hell with the old. Today’s appliances are Aegean Blue, so you need to get rid of all your Tuscan Gold stuff and upgrade? Fine with us. After all, there’s one born every minute, and that is discretionary—i.e., voluntary—spending.

But when those of us who attempt to keep our cars, cell phones, shredders, aquarium lights, and appliances of every kind up and running as long as possible are confronted with the planned removal of our means of doing so, we object. We would like the option of continuing to use the appliances we have saved to purchase in the first place, since we’re ill able to afford replacements. We don’t think it’s too much to ask that companies continue to provide parts for models they make, and that they make them in a durable, responsible manner.

And more than this, we resent being put in a position of contributing to landfills and other trash buildups against our will. Our friend Ben and Silence are happy to make the effort to live as responsibly as possible. Here at Hawk’s Haven, we compost pretty much everything we don’t consume outright, with help from our chickens, earthworm composter, and three-bin compost setup. We recycle religiously. We donate rather than trashing. So we resent being put in the position of pointlessly contributing to the world’s garbage glut.

Our friend Ben recognizes that the present state of affairs is the, perhaps inevitable, result of the end of the Industrial Age crashing into the Information Age. But if the Information Age has served any good purpose, I feel that it’s this: To finally bring the whole world together, to enable us all to communicate effortlessly, to help us move towards true worldwide responsibility. We see this on our blog every day, when we check the stats and are thrilled to see people visiting from India, Korea, Estonia, Brazil, France, Poland, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Japan. Yes!!! We pray that the day comes soon of no “us and them,” just “us,” since we’re convinced that our human race’s very survival depends on everyone working together to keep our world alive and healthy.

This organic approach to living is the polar opposite of planned obsolescence. Our friend Ben feels that our corporations, who have more money and more brainpower than any other group, should bend their collective minds and resources towards developing a new economic system that doesn’t involve bankrupting the people who support it, and doesn’t bankrupt the environment that supports all life in the process. Is it really too much to ask?! GRRRRRRR.