Every so often, something needs replacing. A toaster. A dishwasher. A curling iron.
A tape recorder. The latter, I needed to change. The tape recorder had been with me, oh, for the better part of adulthood. After decades of serving me well, it had decided its time was done.
"I need a new tape recorder," I announced brightly, after having arrived at the local electronics store. "Something under $25 would be ideal."
The attendant looked at me curiously.
"A tape recorder?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "Preferably one that comes with a couple of cassettes. And one that's not too clunky. My last one was the size of a paperback, for crying out loud!"
The attendant continued to look confused. Apparently, he had not heard of tape recorders, or cassettes, and possibly not even paperbacks.
"Do you mean voice recorders?" he asked. "Digital voice recorders? We have plenty of those."
The decades, it was clear, had done their business on tape recorders. Tape recorders, I was starting to understand, did not exist any more. They had been replaced by something called voice recorders, or more accurately, digital voice recorders.
Whatever that meant. "But I want one exactly like the one I had," I pleaded with the attendant at the electronics store. "I have no idea what digital means."
He shrugged. The age gap between us - I'm guessing 30 years or more - was quickly starting to widen.
I began to wonder what would happen - and it will, eventually - when I am in need of a new toaster.
I imagined myself asking for a model similar to what I'd had.
"Oh no," I am guessing the attendant will one day tell me. "We no longer have plug-in, two-slice toasters. We now only have solarpowered, digitally-operated, 16-slice, remote-controlledpowered voice-directed machines."
Chances are, of course, they will no longer be called toasters. They will be called Digital Bread Tanners or Quick'n'Easy Crispers.
Me? I have no interest in a Quick'n'Easy Crisper. I want a toaster. And these days, by golly, I want something else: a new tape recorder.
"What if I, like, paid you $35?" I pleaded with the electronics attendant. "Could you possibly go out back and find me something? Surely you have something in the older part of the store? Like the really old part of the store?"
The attendant, who no doubt also sold digitallypowered dishwashers and digitally-powered curling irons, shook his head.
"There are no old parts in our store," he informed me. "Can I help you with anything else?"
I gave the question some thought.
"Do you still sell batteries?" I asked. "You know, the AA kind that I used to put in my tape recorder?"
"Sure," he said. I bought a dozen and went on my way.
They weren't quite what I'd been wanting.
But at least they were still for sale.
