Thanks Maverick for sharing a day in the life of man enjoying the pleasures of the brave new world of information. It was so cleanly written that my own counter comments seemed heavy and clumsy in contrast. So I didn't want to but you forced me to bring in a heavyweight ringer to present another view.
...excerpts from THE MURDERER - RAY BRADBURY
"...remember, I did a dance on my wrist radio? Well, that night I laid plans to murder my house."
"Are you sure thats the way you want me to write it down?"
"That's semantically accurate. Kill it dead. It's one of those talking, singing, humming, weather-reporting, poetry-reading, novel-reciting, jingle-jangling, rockabye-crooning-when-you-go-to-bed house. A house that that screams opera to you in the shower and teaches you Spanish in your sleep. One of those blathering caves where all kinds of electronic Oracles make you feel a trifle larger than a thimble, with stoves that say, 'I'm apricot pie, and I'm done.' or 'I'm prime roast beef, so baste me!' and other nursery gibberish like that. With beds that rock you to sleep and shake you awake. A house that barely tolerates humans, I'll tell you. A front door that barks: 'You've mud on your feet, sir!' And an electronic vacuum hound that snuffles around after you from room to room, inhaling every fingernail or ash you drop. Jesus God, I say, Jesus God!"
"Quietly," suggested the psychiatrist.
"Remember that Gilbert and Sullivan song-'I've Got It on My List, It Never Will Be Missed'? All night I listed grievances. Next morning early I bought a pistol. I purposely muddied my feet. I stood at our front door. The front door shrilled, 'Dirty feet, muddy feet! Wipe your feet! Please be neat!' I shot the damn thing in the keyhole! I ran to the kitchen, where the stove was just whining, 'Turn me over!' In the middle of a mechanical omelet I did the stove to death. Oh, how it sizzled and screamed, 'I'm shorted! Then the telephone rang like a spoiled brat. I shoved it down the Insinkerator, I must state here and now I have nothing whatever against the Insinkerator; it was an innocent bystander. I feel sorry for it now, a practical device indeed, which never said a word, purred like a sleepy lion most of the time, and digested our leftovers. I'll have it restored. Then I went in and shot the televisor, that insidious beast, that Medusa, which freezes a billion people to stone each night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little but myself always going back, going back, until - Bang! Like a headless turkey, gobbling, my wife whooped out the front door. The police came. Here I am!"
He sat back happily and lit a cigarette. The psychiatrist sat there in the sunshine of that beatific smile.
