This goes all the way back. Starting with my first paycheck, I save for technology. Not much tech — just enough to be cool, rarely way cool.
When eight-track players are must-haves, I do my research and drive about four hours round trip to Tysons Corner to pick one up.
Proud, I show off this Panasonic marvel to my boyfriend. He doesn’t have one. I stand there, batting my eyelashes, waiting for him to save me from having to figure out how to operate it.
He furrows his brow and rips off the packaging in a manly way. Directions lie unread on the harvest gold linoleum. He can’t click in a tape easily, so he jams it, ruining the player.
Some of my friends believe that we invite into our lives such people (via the unconscious, subconscious or pre-birth soul contract) to learn from them.
Worse, their mayhem and unpleasantness mirror what we are ourselves. I think that means, nudniks in your life mean you’re a nudnik, too. If you can elucidate further, be my guest.
Did I learn? You be the judge.
Every time I see that guy afterward, I’m irritated, but I hide my displeasure from myself. It’s more important to keep the cute boyfriend than to tell him he’s irresponsible and owes me a tape deck.
He and I schlep along too long, while he grinds gears on my pre-owned Volvo 122S with genuine red leather seats, lets my new gardening tools rust in the rain and breaks blades on my first electric blender that the bank gave new account holders.
I protest yet still let him drive and “borrow.”
The beloved Volvo dies later in a friend’s driveway, its engine frozen solid. Not a drop of oil has been added while I let the person borrow it during my yearlong European adventure. The car is blamed for seizing up. It doesn’t apologize.
My “too nice” pattern continues through the decades, with some growth: Unless I choose otherwise, I no longer permit people to pack anything that I care about or to borrow favorite books, ladders, wheelbarrows, suitcases, fountain pens, scissors, tools, vehicles, cameras, laptops or any electronic device whatsoever.
In other words, I finally protect what I value. If I don’t want it, and you think you need it, I may — or may not — give it to you.
The late Thomas Cannon, the postal worker philanthropist, gave thousands of dollars to people, but not to people who asked, demanded or took. Heed and learn, he told me.
Most kids are told to share, even when they’re snatching a favorite toy from a playmate who’s ripping the wheels off their Tonka truck. Girls are especially admonished to not be “selfish,” even when they’re taking responsibility for their needs.
It’s fun to share, but not with thieves, demanders or destroyers.
So when I’m given a Roomba, I decide that yours truly will be the only human to touch her. I study the directions, name her and plug her in.
Charlene is a robot who looks like a miniature flying saucer. She whirls around the floor on her own, zipping from place to place in no discernable order, brushing and vacuuming the floors and rugs, concentrating on spots where she senses dirt. She is way cool.
After a recent party, I collapse in a front-hall chair, thinking: a.) I don’t have the energy to climb 25 steps to bed, and b.) Brava, Charlene, for cleaning the floors. Except for that half-inch-wide spot she missed in the corner.
My Resident Inventor observes me eyeing the spot.
“I have an idea,” he says. “You could put a dust rag on top of Charlene, and when she misses something you just grab the rag and clean it.”
“No way,” I yell. “Nothing is going on top of this robot that might compromise her electronics.”
Contact Betty Booker, a retired Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter and columnist, at
