Hi, my name is Robert and I am an appliance junkie. Like other people, I guess, I have this reflexive, fetch-the-bone relationship with Technology, the new and improved opium of the masses. Any Made-in-Japan device that blinks, chirps, jerks, vibrates, breaks down and comes with an instruction manual and lifetime warranty I would gladly barter with Beelzebub to buy. On the other hand, I would love nothing more than to heave all of my squawking doodads, gizmos and thingamagigs off the balcony and join a Buddhist nudist colony. Paint the walls white and live in harmony with the birds and bees. Whack acolytes on the shin bone with my walking stick. After all, who really needs a lifetime relationship with something that can't change its own batteries? Why do we invest our hard-earned money in contraptions that need updated, revamped, and revolutionized once a year, or every time some guy named Bill decides its time we get with the latest program.

Maybe it's all symptomatic of a deepening mid-life crisis: as the annoying appliances continue to get sleeker, meaner and faster, I am becoming fatter, more lethargic, and older. And perhaps worse of all, technology doesn't go through the trauma of hair loss! There is no Microsoft program to update ME! It's just not fair. What about my hardware, Bill? The machines are becoming more human, while the humans are starting to resemble the cranky machines. As Einstein (I think) once said: Somewhere in the microwave lies the truth.

Just the other day - rewind - I was fumbling with my mobile phone, trying to charge the battery so that I would not miss yet another 24 hours of senseless texting, chatting and blathering about what I am doing at this particular moment (Writing to you, STUPID!). So while I was trying to connect the umbilical cord to my Philips wunderkind, the slippery gadget dropped out of my hands like a bar of soap and landed - not on cushy carpet, green grass, or even loving linoleum - but on terrible terra cotta. The little device gave out a chirp of pain and vibrated for a second before the display window faded out to terminal black - forever. For a brief second I considered performing CPR on my little chum, but it was clearly too late. But even more tragic, I was now cut off from the outside world. Nobody could reach me, nor could I reach anybody (Ah!). I was a remote island in a sea of satellites, wires and heavy duty appliances. But instead of rejoicing in my newfound tranquility, I stuck my head out of my tiny bathroom window and screamed at the pedestrian traffic below from the 19th floor, "Hey! Somebody toss me a lifeline! I'm all alone here! I can't, I can't, connect with anybody..." But nobody stopped, of course, nobody even looked up. They were either plugged in to their MP3 players, chatting with somebody, or thumb-phukking an SMS. They were too busy cruising the superhighway to worry about some road kill on the shoulder of the road.

When I finally got through to a friend over a tedious rotary dial, he suggested that I remain calm and take my dead mobile phone to a technician. "You know, they can retrieve your hardware," he said very smartly, the wiseass. "They have the technology. I knew somebody who knew somebody who accidentally dropped his mobile into the toilet and... blah, blah, bleepety, blah."

Yes, I can picture myself pacing back and forth in some computer waiting room, jumping up expectantly every time a technician emerges from the operating room to implore him about Philip 550's condition. "Will he make it, Doc? Tell me the truth!" Eventually, some computer nerd - the wizards and warlocks of these moronic days - places a gloved hand on my shoulder and says, "We did everything possible, but really, don't you think it's time to move up the evolutionary ladder to Nokia or even Samsung."

"But Doc," I mumble, "I had about one hundred odd numbers on that old Philips 550. A year's worth of telephone numbers, all gone."

And then the nightmare ends with me rolling around on the floor with the fat technician after he asks me, very snobbishly, why I didn't think to write the numbers down on a sheet of paper. Paper?! What's that?

Everyday from everywhere we are bombarded with microwaves, radio waves, tidal waves, sonar, ultraviolet rays, gamma rays and x-rays. It's amazing our muscles still allow us to stand up after this assault. I look forward to phantom vibrations, it's the only joy left in my dull life. My family doesn't talk to me except through instant messaging, Skype or collect calls. I knew an old guy who would move his eyeglass case instead of his mouse, cursing the "piece of shit" computer the whole time...

I'm sorry, I can't talk anymore, it's just too painful... and my phone is ringing.

By Robert Bridge