Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005.

GOING BONKERS WITH BAUBLES, BERRIES & BELLS --Or, Beware of BlackBerries, Cellphones and Laptops!--

If state-of-the-art "wireless technology" has given birth to such tawdry taskmasters as BlackBerries, cellphones and laptops, the Universe has also seen to it that such man-made devices would come packaged with an invisible, immutable, and infernal operating system deity named, "Calamity, Chaos & Confusion".

It seems that happiness today has been reduced to acquiring newfangled gadgets, gizmos or gigagobblers that do absolutely everything but clean the kitchen sink.

Speaking of scruffy sculleries, your best bet would be to a visit your local "Tabernacle of Tetrachloride" where you can request a private audience with the "Wizard of Washbasins". Failing that, consult the "Diva of Drudgery"* (who usually has all the quick and dirty answers to the western world's most innocuous conundrums!)

Sadly, my days as a professional cherry-picker in Peach Bottom, Virginia are over ...which brings me in a round about way to my favorite comfort food ..."passion fruit". Besides consuming far too many succulent seeds and passion pits for my own good, I also enjoy the occasional shopping-spree for trendy “fruit of the loom” drawers in the "Big Apple". However, that doesn’t leave me much spare time to pursue pleasure unless you include such delightful diversions as a fruitless game of tiddlywinks or a toe-wrestling tournament in the "Old Country".

To those byte-inclined "Bluetooth" folk who can't live without their “BlackBerries”, I say get a life! These gizmos do not impress me in the least. For one thing these "robust" packages of tutti-fruit technology are worth a king's ransom. And for another, hanging them on your lapel makes you look like a dork, or worse yet a loon. More to the point, unless you enjoy low-impact digital workouts with your thumb and index finger…take my humble advice, be a dweeb and forget about them!

Celluar telephones, the smallest of these dastardly digital devices, are a melodious menace to mankind. Besides making their owners look divinely self-important in a world of wannabes and winners, they also lurk surruptitiously about in the bottom of pockets, packsacks, and purses offering melodrama at its best for bystanders. And, as my dear Mum used to say, "anything that vibrates, sings, and talks back when you least expect it should be potty-trained".

So, to avoid being zapped by alien airwaves, I recommend using "Semaphore". This low-tech communication method is a lot cheaper and more fun than a bag of juicy-fruit bubble-gum. After all, how many people do you know who carry around flags all day long, flap their arms, and look a tad miffed when cab-drivers interrupt their train of thought and terse text messages?

As for "laptops", they seem to languish about every prominent place under the sun. Have you ever noticed how they invite unwanted attention from sticky-fingered sorts who can't wait to abscond with them when you're responding to the call of nature? Then of course there are curmudgeons like me who think it's a waste of time to invent something that helps nincompoops organize their recipes, play solitaire, or set a trap for a wireless mouse.

Being from the “old school”, I was always taught that children should be seen and not heard. Now if only that credo would apply to all these modern communication tools, the world would be an infinitely quieter place.

Just imagine a world without wireless windbags, wonky windows, or wicked weirdoes fingering the fruit ...where we would all be free to follow our bliss ...be it picking four-leaf clovers, drawing dorky droodles, coloring outside the lines, or maybe even tickling someone pink for a change!