Swickard: When technology breaks suddenly

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   Early in life I learned how technology can let us down. It was my seventh birthday and I had lobbied desperately for a drum without much hope considering the look on my mother’s face.
            So, my Uncle Gene bought me a guitar for my birthday. When I opened the package my mother and I said simultaneously, “Oh my God!”
            It wasn’t a real guitar, rather, it had a crank which when turned played the tune “Oh Susanna.” This was before anyone with that name became the Governor of New Mexico.
            I turned the crank and the song was a hit. Uncle Gene had a big smile, even when my mother, while bringing him hot coffee, accidentally spilled it on him.
            I played the song again, and again. Then I decided to sing and even added some yodeling and a few yips. I was Johnny One Song all day long. My parents looked a little frayed.
            Then it was time to say my prayers, brush my teeth and go to bed. I played the song one last time for my mother as she tucked me in. What a present!
            Next morning, I jumped up, grabbed the guitar and turned the crank. No sound came out. The technological wonder broke while I was asleep. I was crestfallen. My uncle looked glum.
            I asked him, “Can you fix this?” He looked at my mother and then slowly shook his head. We all called him Uncle Genius, and I immediately knew that if he couldn’t fix it, heck, it was broken for good since he was an electrical engineer.
            I’ll admit I suspected that one of the grown-ups had some hand in the guitar not working, so I asked my mother if she or my dad had been playing “Old Susanna” on my guitar after I went to sleep. Her expression wavered between hysteria and alarm.
            She firmly stated that no one had been playing “Oh Susanna.” That meant I was forced to accept that the guitar broke on its own. Over the years other technological wonders have broken and they have broken at the most inconvenient times. In fact, I have come to expect it.
            We don’t know when our technology will break except it will be unexpectedly. That rule has been true. Lightning hit a few houses away and everything connected to the cable died. The power in the house wasn’t affected, just everything tied to the cable.
            I brought the almost still smoking cable box into the local cable office. The representative immediately proclaimed that when lightning hits and blows up technology, “It is an act of God.”
            I smiled, “Can I quote you?” He hesitated a moment and then nodded. So, I wrote a column a few years ago that a major international company affirms that there is a God. He seemed cranky the next time I saw him.
            It is likely that it wasn’t God who broke my guitar. But I now understand and have long since forgiven her.

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