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“I Gotta Rock”

You know this line. Any self-respecting “Charlie Brown “fan recognizes this from “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. We are getting on in years. Some of us are doing it better than others.

Now do we sit still and accept the fateful hand of what nature has dealt us, or do we handle nature in our unique manner? Let’s explore. Remember when there were no advertisements for physicians? The way you found a doctor was through a family member, a friend, or by chance. Now some big P.R firm shoves the idea of having Doctor I. M. Special for your primary care physician down your throat and you accept it. After all you saw him on television all fixed up to look perfect, and if he is perfect you are convinced he knows what he is doing. There was a time that plastic surgeons were looked upon as the “perpetual black sheep” of the profession, now they are the “golden child” and it is all because of mainstreaming. We are looking for perfection, or the edge that can give us a closer shot at it. Keep in the back of your mind, that we all are moving on in age like it or not.

You have lived through years of eating three meals a day at some fast food restaurant and you wonder why you are overweight and have high blood pressure. Well we have to fix that, schedule yourself for out-patient liposuction and get a prescription for a diuretic of  your choice? Now what is the “hot drug” this week?By the way did it ever occur to you that just because some large pharmaceutic company is pushing a  particular drug that you may not be qualified to suggest to a trained physician what you need to take. You can stop putting that unhealthy fat-riddle fast food into your system, you can start exercising and eating balanced meals, oh but what am I saying that process would take time. I’m gonna need this weight loss/improved health/more youthful look on the instant gratification plan.

I shook my head in minor disgust, as I noticed the national tabloids sporting articles on celebrity cellulite and plastic surgeries gone wrong. I watched an ad for anti-aging cream  warn about fifty year old skin.  Well what’s wrong with fifty year old skin,  especially if you are fifty. If you have cellulite you go to the local plastic surgeon; he botches things up, now not only do you still have the signs of cellulite, you have additional scarring. You could have had that cellulite and not incurred a costly and possibly dangerous procedure. Forgive me, I am not going to rush out and have a doctor put me into a sleep that I may not awake from, so he can do something  to me that may not work.

When I was growing up my parents cautioned me to take care of my things, so that they would last for a longer time period. Huummm…However, when you are not satisfied with self, when you think that there is an easier, faster way of deceiving nature and turning back the hands of time; you have to realize that you, much like “Charlie Brown”, may end up with a rock.

Is Everything Disposable?

My flat screen television went on the “blink” a short time ago, fortunately it was under warranty. I contacted the manufacturer and began the process of getting my problem taken care of. The short version of this story is a repairman was dispatched, he came out spent about ten minutes working on the set( five of those ten minutes he was on the phone with the manufacturer) before he told me it couldn’t be fixed and Sharp would have to send me a new one. I pondered about how disappointed I was. I mean this set was only about a year old, I liked it, I was used to it and now I had to go through another procedure before I could watch television. Why, because I thought when a repairman was dispatched to see about a relatively new piece of machinery I expected it to be fixed. Hold on, I thought when I bought that set it would last more than a year before I would be faced with going out and searching for another one. Think about it what was the last thing you had fixed in your home? I remember a time in my life very clearly technicians/repairmen coming to our home to fix washing machines, refrigerators, and yes televisions. I also remember that devices such as these used to last quite a long time.

Maytag advertised that their repairmen were the loneliest peole in town. This claim was to draw your attention to the fact that their machines were so good, so reliable that you basically did not need a repairman and the poor guy was destined to a life of boredom and loneliness. You, on the other hand, the smart consumer would have a great piece of equipment to last a lifetime. Value for your dollar, who could ask for more. Wait, value for your dollar, integrity, sound and solid products, are these a thing of the past?

Disposable used to apply to paper products, items that were understandably cheaper to toss in the trash than to take time to clean or wash (i.e. napkins, plates, cups) let alone replace. I find it utterly ridiculous to think about getting a new item such as a printer instead of buying a replacement cartridge of ink, yet I recently found it to be true.

Making things that are so easily replaced, cheapens and devalues them. Let’s revisit my television, one might think”okay well at least you got a new set”, but this is the deal. I didn’t want a new set I had the set I wanted. I went shopping, I did my research and decided on that particular model. Suddenly, I am told this is no good and here is another one.  Think about it, if it is so easy to replace don’t you wonder if was made very good to begin with?Am I becomimg my parents, living in the cliche’ of “I remember when”,  and if I am is it wrong to expect something I paid for to last long enough for me to feel comfortable in throwing out the packaging it came in?