change

We sure have been hearing a lot about change these days. We need to change this! We've got to change that! Vote for change! You can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody going on about change. Frankly, I think there's been plenty of change already. In fact, I haven't even caught up with the change that happened last month, last year, or even 10 years ago; and now it's looking like we could all be in for a whole lot more of it.

"Embrace change." "Change is good." These were the catchphrases the brass at Levi Strauss & Co. used to tell their sales reps. Which in translation meant grab your butts because something you're not going to like is about to happen. And sure enough it always did. Proving to me that change is not always good, even though it does make a catchy slogan.

Sometimes change announces itself and gives people a chance to prepare for its arrival, whether they want to or not. But in my experience, change mostly likes to sneak up on you when you're not looking. I think it likes to watch your reaction when you finally notice it. For instance, the other week I needed to move one of the girls' car from the driveway. And there it was, right there on the dashboard- change. Can someone tell me what happened to the regular old turning knobs and dials on car radios? On hers there were only bunches of microscopic buttons and little hieroglyphics meant to get across what it was the buttons were supposed to do, none of which showed me how to turn the volume down before my head exploded. I had to turn the car off, leap out, and slam the door just to make it stop, and I swear I could hear the muffled sound of change laughing.

And that spiteful change has crept inside the house as well. "In my home! In my bedroom! Where my husband sleeps...and my children play with their toys!" That's what Michael Corleone once said, although I think he was referring to gunfire and not change.

Suddenly I can't watch a movie by myself anymore because I don't know what buttons to push on which remote. More often than not lately, by the time I figure out how to answer the new digital phone, the caller has hung up. The fact that we even have a land phone marks us for ridicule with some change-happy people. Not that we don't keep up with any of the trends. It's a fact that John owned a big honking cell phone with a 5 pound battery and its very own carrying case long before Zack Morris ever thought about using one on Saved by the Bell! Nowdays people go around taking pictures with their cell phones. Pictures! I already have a year's worth of pictures on a digital camera that I can't look at because I don't know how to fix the device that connects the computer that opens the apparatus that runs the program that shares the file that lives in the house that Jack built. Change has made everything digital, wireless, remote, and hands-free. Not to mention miniscule, complicated, counterintuitive, and on my last good nerve.

Maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety, like Andy Rooney but without the gnarly eyebrows and the bit on 60 Minutes. After all, change is progress and all progress is good, isn't it? Maybe not all. I think sometimes change is just change, although I can think of a couple of good changes. Like putting wheels on luggage- where was that back in high school when I lugged my green, 100 lb. hard sided suitcases all over Europe? And who doesn't like built-in cup holders in their cars? It really frees up the hands for those who like to multi-task while driving. But as for most of the other stuff... you can keep the change. I do have one good idea for plugging into this whole change thing, though. I'm thinking of making matching t-shirts for John and me- kind of like those "Stupid" and "I'm with Stupid" t-shirts you sometimes see couples wear at the state fair. His will say "CHANGE". Mine will say, "I EMBRACE CHANGE." What do you think?