I Am The Electronic Device You Were So Excited To Get
Whew, I’m finally out of that box. The last thing I remember was being assembled by a 12-year-old Chinese kid in knockoff Air Jordans. I mean, sure, he was barely paying attention and I think he was listening to Swedish death metal on his knockoff Airpods, but he seemed to know what he was doing in the 30 seconds it took to put me together. I’m absolutely, totally positive I was assembled 100% correctly and will work exactly as promised with no glitches.

See, the box says EASY SET-UP. Let’s just keep believing that for right now, okay?

Step one: put in the batteries, which are included. They don’t actually work, but they are, indeed, included. I saw the kid grab a couple from the Old Battery Bin that’s in the corner of the warehouse. Some of the batteries have been in there since 1975. Betamax, Commodore 64. They’ve seen it all.

Of course the batteries don’t work, moron. Are you insane? Now, they might blow up or ooze some toxic, corrosive substance that will linger in a landfill for the next thousand years, but they definitely don’t work.

Drive to the store and buy fresh batteries. Okay, that’s done. Everything is fine. Your blood pressure has almost returned to normal. You’ve only lost 30 precious minutes out of your life that you can never get back.

Let’s take a quick look at the instructions. They’re printed in microscopic type in 15 languages, some of which you didn’t even know existed. Is that hieroglyphics? Possibly.

Oh, isn’t that cute! Your toddler is stuffing the instructions down his full diaper. He “help daddy.” Nevermind. Instructions are for losers.

Point the remote with the super fresh batteries at the device and hold down whatever button looks like it’s the most important. It’s probably bigger than the other buttons or exactly the same size with some arcane symbol printed on it that means nothing to you. A circle with three lines through it? A triangle that looks angry?

These are meant to be completely intuitive symbols that any idiot can understand. The problem is you, boss. In fact, your wife is telling you that right now. Let her try.

See, the remote paired immediately in her capable and possibly alien hands.

Whatever you do, do not begin stating loudly and emphatically that that’s exactly what you were doing and it was probably just ready to pair finally and it has nothing to do with her superior intellect.

If you close your eyes, you can’t see the smug look on her face.

Breathe. Ignore how much fun your toddler and the cat are having with the empty box.

Let’s download some apps! Do you remember all of your passwords? No? Do you enjoy entering your email (probably wrong) and password (even wronger) using an onscreen keyboard in a process that will take the next five hours? Also no?

This is going to be fun.
['Bev Potter']
['Electronics', 'Family', 'Humor']