Jacquie’s grandmother’s antique clock hasn’t missed a beat — ever
First it started to blink madly, then it shut down altogether. My Sony clock that’s been digitally illuminating my night stand for the past six years failed yesterday. I turned it over to see if I could find an on/off switch and much to my surprise found a trap door housing one of those batteries with the two little plugs at the top. Marked, “backup time” reserve, I hope the battery just went dead, though I’m still at a loss as to why the clock has stopped working when it is still very much plugged into the wall.
Moments later, as I was winding the wand on my Levelor blinds, the wand just wound right off the blinds. The little plastic surrounding the hole that hooks onto the blind decided I’d wound it once too many times and just snapped off.
Despite valiant efforts with a little superglue, the plastic came undone again, causing me to add a trip to the Janovic Plaza store on 66th and Lex to my to do list.
Handle with care
Jacquelyn Ottman’s book, If Trash Could Talk, inspires a new consumption culture in NYC.
To corroborate the time, I wore a watch to bed last night, and I keep running out to my dining area to check the antique clock that ticks against the wall. A prized possession of my grandmother’s, that clock graced her library wall the entire time I was growing up. She or someone else must have had it electrified in the 1940s or so, I’d like to thank the person who did the work, because they obviously did it with care and fine materials, because it hasn’t skipped a beat or required the slightest cleaning, oiling or fine tuning since I inherited it in 1992. Now if only I could find a wand replacement for my Levelor blind that was made with such care.
Do you have any dearly loved products that have survived the years and continue to do their job beautifully?
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I have had the same white cubish SONY clock radio — Dream Machine — on my nightstand (high school, 3 different residences in colleges, my first apt. with girlfriends, my own solitary first apt., and in 17 years of marriage) since 1984! 2012: my husband last week bought a new Pioneer stereo receiver from a major electronics retailer, opened the box to remove the receiver and hook it up and it didn’t work. Broken. Brand new.
“Planned obsolescence” was coined into our language by Brooks Stevens back in the 1954. View the whole sorry story here: http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/ .
Right on! I remember an old fan that my dad had. I think it was from World War 2. That thing worked through my grade school, high school, college and beyond. Contrast that to our Vornado — less than two years old — that suddenly just quit last night. Apparently the motor is burnt out.