Saturday, June 29, 2013

My wife and her gadgets

My wife, the lovely and talented K, is addicted to gadgets.   

Marketing courses at business schools all across the land teach how to appeal to people with her mentality.  They're studying her like psychologists study rats in a maze.  

"What classes you taking this semester, Bill?"  

"Oh, you know, the usual....B law 314, statistics 421, management 330, and Advanced Kelly 4540."

I have periodic garage sales just to get the gadgets she "couldn't live without" out of the house to make room for the next batch of gadgets I know she'll be bringing home soon.



She has waffle makers, panini makers, tea makers, mixers, food processors, crock pots, a "Magic Bullet" blender, some kind of big fancy blender, a mandolin, multiple coffee makers that were "to die for" last week, but this week are just not cool anymore.

These garage sales often come back to bite me in the ass when she sees an advertisement for a gizmo that she once had, then I sold, and now she wants again.  She's gone full circle....she's become a serial same-gadget buyer.  

I tolerate all those kitcheny things because, honestly, I eat very well.  And besides, they're not very expensive....$40 here, $60 there....they're not breaking the bank.



Kelly's vision of Heaven

Her electronic gadgets are a whole 'nuther matter, however.  Those little electronic bastards cost a fortune!  Here are the ones she's had that I can remember:

HP laptop

HP NetBook

iMac (mine now)

MacBook

Nintendo Wii

Kindle, generation 1

Kindle, generation 2

Kindle Paperwhite

Kindle Fire

Google Nexxus

Samsung Galaxy S2

iPod Shuffle

iPod Nano

iPad, generation 1

iPad Mini

iPhone 3

iPhone 3S

iPhone 5

There are probably more, but my brain is too shell-shocked to remember them all.

Today she saw on Facebook that one of her friends accidentally washed his iPod Nano, so she said she was going to sell him her old one.  I can see what's coming next:  She bought it for $160 a month ago, now she'll sell it used for $80, and a month from now Apple will unveil a "new, improved version in 10 striking new colors", and of course she'll just have to have one for the pre-order super-sweet "better hurry 'cause they won't last long at this price" of $180. 

Publicly Apple will say the higher price is due to "raw material price increases", but among themselves they'll just giggle and call it the "Kelly premium".

I'm considering an intervention.  (Who am I kidding.  I don't have a chance in hell of pulling it off.  :)

S




15 comments:

  1. 1. I am not hoarding all the gadgets - I do sell some to offset a bit of the cost (well really I just pocket the money to buy coffee)

    2. How many coats do you have? How many rain coats do you have? TEXAS is not exactly known it's months on end winter type weather....and what rain we do get....hardly justifies the number of raincoats you own ;)

    I love you anyway.....and save the time on the intervention...it will just give you a headache

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  2. As you say, you eat very well, but i sympathize with you over the purchase of all these items. My wife doesn't buy them but I've purchased a few as gifts for her over the years and mostly these have failed to entertain her for long. We never use the Panini maker and I lost much of the skin on my hand trying to work the mandolin. But this IS a long list of electronic devices.

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  3. You really need to write these kinds of posts and then carefully select the delete button. Just when I start to think you are an intelligent guy you take a shot at your wife...ok I take an occasional shot as well, but Mrs. C does not read my posts.

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    Replies
    1. Aww...she doesn't mind Joe. It just gives her an excuse to go out and buy another gizmo. She says it's better than make-up sex. (Should I be insulted?)

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  4. You two are too funny - ha!

    I used so salivate over kitchen gadgets - & even bought some - & then I remembered that I don't cook. But if we could afford it I would have all of those electronic gadgets for sure!

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    Replies
    1. So why don't you buy them for Mike? HE'S the cook in the family. Win-win!

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  5. I am salivating over this list of electronic gadgets. The only thing stopping me is my limited amount of money trees in the back yard.

    I do have a lot of cameras...

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  6. Heheh. I am pretty good but I really want a home cotton candy machine to make maple sugar cotton candy. I know I will only make it once but still, I wait, I wait for the perfect occasion for it to make sense to buy.

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    Replies
    1. Joan I can send you a perfectly good waffle recipe that will take care of that maple syrup!

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  7. Scott, you have the perfectly good response to Miss K: "Yes, dear."

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  8. I'm not a cook so kitchen gadgets don't appeal to me :-) I like electronic toys so I have an old iPod, a couple of external hard drives, my smart phone and a tablet, but what I really want is to be able to walk into a camera store and buy all the lenses that I really MUST have ;-)

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  9. With my wife it's all manner of litte drawer gadgets.

    But I can't complain. I'm the electronic gadget guy around here. I sympathize with K's obsession.

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  10. You're not alone in the gadget frenzy. While getting the latest gadgets all the time can be expensive, at least you can still get some money back by selling the old ones. And hey, if Kelly can take care of them well enough, you can probably get more for them than what you sell them for.

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