I don't get it.

"It", in this case, is technology. I use it, but I don't get it.

For example. I spent the last fifteen minutes trying to get my husband's stereo system to switch over to the damned CD player instead of the radio. During this time period, I turned the radio off three times because it was playing painfully stupid commercials.

I also turned it off because nine times out of ten, if a computer isn't doing what you want it to, you reboot and it starts behaving. Stereos do not work this way.

I have no patience, or very little, and when a mechanical object does not work in the way I expect it to, I get very annoyed very quickly. Within about thirty seconds, I was pretty pissed off at the stereo. I poked at the buttons I thought were supposed to switch it to CD, and, persistently, they didn't. I got the remote, and poked at buttons, to no avail. I turned knobs.

Eventually I found the right knob, labeled "Input Selector". I don't know. Is that obvious? Is it my own technological blindness that didn't translate "Input Selector" into "Turn This To Change Modes?" I donno.

By the time I found Input Selector, the radio was actually playing a song I liked, and so I sat there directly in front of the stereo, listening to the song, and cursing the general idiocy of electronic equipment. The song got over, I turned the CD player on, hit Random Shuffle, and it played the first song on the first CD.

I don't get it.

I find this conflict within myself fascinating. I use technology all the time. Hell: it's my job, doing tech support. At the same time, I'm something of a Luddite. Technology is not to be trusted. It is Bad and Evil and Not Self-Explanatory (which is, of course, why I have a job).

I wouldn't give up my flush toilet, for example, for all the tea in China, the fact that I dislike tea nonwithstanding. My computer has given me an enormous variety of friends across the entire planet, and I wouldn't give that up, either.

On the other hand, I'd outlaw cars in a minute. Nah, that's not true: lots of people love their cars. Me, I don't trust them. They're a lot bigger than I am and have no self-awareness at all. If you stop paying attention, they start doing stupid things. Granted, I'm not real keen on the idea of horse-back riding in the dead of winter in Alaska, but at least if you stop paying attention, a horse won't run into a tree.

Technology has given us lots of new, creative, and nasty ways to kill people; that's one side of it that I'd be happy to give up. To compliment that, though, it's given us incredibly and nearly miraculous ways to save lives, too, which perhaps balances out the darker uses. (Granted, it's still far easier to kill a lot of people than it is to save a lot of lives, but still.)

I used to think that my distrust of a lot of technology was from a lack of understanding it. I don't think that's true anymore . . . generally speaking, I know why my computer works, I can explain the principle of flight, and I understand how the fridge generates cold air to keep my milk cold.

However, I don't seem to be able to comprehend "Input Selector". Maybe it is just a lack of the proper terminology on my part. Did you know that, much like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ted's stereo doesn't have an 'off' button? It's got a 'Standby' button. With a little red light next to it.

Either someone with a really wonderful sense of humour added that little feature, or somebody who was frighteningly into buzzwords added it. I'm more inclined to believe it's the latter. I hope I'm wrong.

Generally, though, terminology does make sense to me. It has to, or else I wouldn't be any good at my job. Maybe I should just stay away from stereos.

I think part of my problem is that while I think technology is great, I have this sneaking suspicion that it's about to blow up in my face. Life can't be that easy.

How do you end up in the latter part of the final decade of the twentieth century, with a job in computer technical support, and distrust technology? I don't get it.

It's something that bothers me vaguely, on occassion. I would like to say, "I do this job, I use this hardware, the world is a better place for it, nothing will go wrong."

But gods almighty, can you imagine the chaos that would be caused if suddenly, for no evident reason, everybody's cars stopped working? All the trains shut down, the planes fell out of the air, and the only mode of transportation we had were our feet? Oh, sure: we'd recover, but there would be mass starvation in big cities, places where all the food is brought in by truck because there's no farmland anywhere nearby. People who lived more than a few miles from work wouldn't be able to get there in any reasonable amount of time, and even those who only lived a few miles might not be willing to make the walk.

I am reminded of the scene in L.A. Story, in which Steve Martin goes to visit a friend. The woman with him suggests they walk to the friend's house. Martin says, "Walk? Who walks in L.A.?" He then gets into his car, puts it in neutral, and, with his door open, kicks the car down the street the fifty or so feet to his friend's house. People with this mindset (perhaps exaggerated) are not going to walk to work.

Of course, that'd be the perfect opportunity to discover just how vital most of the jobs out there are. How's that for an ego-boost? Can't get to work, your boss calls and says, "Gee, we realized we don't need you, don't bother coming back if your car starts working again." I can see it.

And I can see that leading to problems that would make today's crime rates look like a baby scribbling on a wall.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that this scenario is particularly likely. But it's this trend of thought that leads me to eye technology with a trace of skeptisism. Gods know I love it. I just want to remember that life is hardly impossible without it.

Huh. I guess that's the root of my distrust: a thread of pessimism. I don't want it to all blow up, but I don't want to find myself debillitated if it does.

I still wish "Input Selector" were labeled as "Change Modes", or something, though.