NOT SO SMART

And other things about remote controls and light switches

The box was overflowing. The house sitter was nodding her head in agreement, but it was hard to tell if she understood, or if she was as overwhelmed with the box as I was. This is the reality of our empty nest—the kids are gone—and nobody in the house knows how to work the electronic gadgets. A box full of remote controls was our solution. We didn’t have to look for lost remotes, and we had given up trying to use them anyway.

For years, we didn’t have to struggle to find someone to watch our pets while we were away. It was easy to hire one of the kid’s friends or a neighbor’s child. Besides that, most of our vacations were road trips. The rule was that, if we could get to the destination in fifteen hours or less, we drove. The four of us and three dogs would pack into our Jeep … stopping only to fill up the gas tank.

Now our house is down to two people and one dog, and I have vowed to become a regular traveler. This vow was a necessity now that both our kids have moved thousands of miles away. I don’t see any road trips in my future. My new rule is that if it takes longer than six hours to drive, we are going to fly.  So finding just the right house/dog sitter is important.

After interviewing three potential hires … one was afraid of the dog, another asked if her boyfriend could sleep overnight—that’s a no, by the way—and the third said she would get back to us. We realized we needed to present ourselves a little differently, which meant we couldn’t just smile and hand over the remote control box.

First up was eliminating as many of the remotes as possible. Why does a refrigerator have a remote, anyway? At least I think it’s for the refrigerator. Almost every appliance has the word “smart” in its title. Smart refrigerators, smart washing machines, smart coffee machines, smart thermostats, smart vacuums, and, of course, smart TVs. From that list, we decided only the vacuum and the TV remotes needed to stay. I would have liked to have kept the remote to the smart ceiling fan and light in the guest room, but I couldn’t find it.  

The smart house commercial is very convincing. Who wouldn’t want it? The meticulously clean house, the perfectly-groomed children, and the adorable and well-behaved pets. A simple command on the remote sparks instant attention from every system. Cue the lights and soft music as the perfect family strolls in through the front door.

For me, it will take the smart machine that they had in The Jetsons cartoon before I join the smart house craze. I’ll bet that you remember the one—when you press a few buttons, a steaming hot three-course meal shoots out.

For now, I’m perfectly happy to turn on and off the lights with a switch and lock my doors with a key. The conversation with each potential house sitter will now be much simpler.

All we have to say is that our house is not so smart.

Photo by Rock'n Roll Monkey on Unsplash