Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Stressful modern conveniences

Within the last few days, three things broke down on us - the flush of both toilets in our home and, most annoyingly, my Blackberry. While many may find them merely small issues, they really are not if you're working within various constraints like time (baby is due anytime!), money and skill.

We first discovered that the toilet in our bathroom was leaking when we moved into our new place in December. We chose to ignore it as we were too tired to deal with it then. When our water bill came this month, we decided that we needed to fix it as it was not just leaking water but cash! So, three days ago, husband and I put both our wanting plumbing skills together to fix the leak. We found that the water pump was faulty. Motivated, we made our way to the nearest hardware store and purchased a generic pump which we hope will work. 

When we got home, we started taking the water tank apart only to find that we don't have the right tools to deal with it. So we called on some friends to see if they have the wrench we need. Finally one friend's brother owns one and we will pick it up tomorrow (sigh...delay = inconvenience=stress). But on the night we got home from the hardware store, I discovered that the guest toilet was also leaking! So now we have to see if we succeed in fixing the first one before we work on the second one...

A few evenings ago, my Blackberry went kaput. It wouldn't let me do anything except call the last person who calls me! While the handheld has served me well for over two years and due for an upgrade offer (by the telcom company), I decided end of last year to stick with it as it still functioned for what I needed it for. Unfortunately its demise was due. 

Finally got a new Blackberry at a decent price and was charging and setting it up last night when I discovered that it kept going into rebooting mode on its own! What a bummer! A search on Google confirms that it's pretty common problem with the model I bought. And worse, there hasn't been one solution for it - many users had to trouble-shoot and it's basically hit or miss. Some ended up returning the phone and some got a replacement that works. I spent most of today trying to figure out what's wrong with it and I MAY have solved the issue but it's still too early to tell. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

The point of this entry, I guess, is an ask-out-loud question of why things, specifically supposedly  modern conveniences, always break down at the wrong time and the solution is always highly stressful. Are these unnecessary hassle that we bring upon ourselves? For example, why do I need a Blackberry now when I didn't even own a cellphone for the first half of my adult life? And why do have fancy pumps nowadays when the first generation toilet flushes worked just as well? Are our lives really easier and simpler with these "progressive" gadgets? Hmm...  

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