Sometimes it seems that civilization has arrived too soon. Time saving devices often don't and quick fix solutions frequently aren't. The US Government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a pen that would write in space. The Russians used a pencil. Recently I bought a fancy leaf blower/vacuum for the patio. Soon my hands smelled like gasoline, I no longer can fit my car in the garage and the cat has a permanent noise hang-up. So I sold it to my neighbor for $50.00 (Orig. $300.) and bought a broom. It works fine.

The indoor vacuum came with a hard floor attachment that requires an MIT engineer to hook up. Swirls of foam spewed forth like a Niagara, mixing with the cat hairs, dust balls and spilled food. It took me two hours to take it apart, clean it, and re-install it on the garage shelf where it belongs. Then I put a rag on a stick and cleaned up in ten minutes. The floor looks great and I get to use the rag over and over - for free.

One day my wife couldn't resist buying a food chopper for $29.95. The pictures show mounds of colorful vegetables chopped and ready for cooking. Trying it out for the first time,

an onion disappeared into its maw, and was quickly reduced to a mass of gooey sludge with a ragged ball in the middle. Next, a potato magically turned into liquid followed by an apple laced with inedible seeds and mangled peel.

After one cut on a finger of each hand ( I swear I only touched the blade lightly), I somehow got it into the original box and returned it the same day. Observing this fiasco was my Grandma who snidely suggested I use the paring knife she gave us twenty years ago. She was right.

Did you ever succumb to the siren song of the seed catalogs and the pictures on the seed packets at the store? When you total up the cost of seed, fertilizer, chicken wire fencing, tools and bribery money to your kids for weeding, the figure is staggering. On the other hand, twelve large tomatoes, ten green peppers, ten pounds of onions and a large bag of green beans cost only $30.00. No waste, no digging, no bugs, and no garden. I know you can't buy time, but it certainly is easy to waste it.

One flower packet caught my uneducated eye. It promised dozens of beautiful pink daisy-like flowers without the hassle of planting the seeds indoors in March, transplanting them three times in progressively larger pots and transferring them to the garden in June. Just throw the seeds on the ground and wait for the flowers. They were called cosmos and all the information on the packet was true. Just to give them an added edge, I did plant them in April and transferred the seedlings to small pots in May. By June, I was giving four plants a week away to friends but no flowers appeared on the stems. By July, the plants had grown to three feet tall but no signs of blooms. Some of my victims thought it was a joke and threw them away, others stuck in there, watering and fertilizing and hoping. Eventually, some of the plants reached a height of seven feet, taking over the whole garden with a forest of stalks Jack would have been proud of. The flowers were magnificent. Next time Ill pay more attention to the back of the seed packet. In small print it said, Height four or more feet. Another caution said. Do not fertilize.

One modern invention used by millions of people is the computer printer. In five years the price for a top printer has come down from $400. To $60. What they dont tell you that a weeks printing will exhaust the original ink cartridges. A new set will cost you over $90. Every week. Its like buying a car for $10,000 and spending $15,000 a week on gas to get to work.

Every car owner is faced daily by ads for magic scratch removers, fancy car wash formulas and brushes, wheel cleaners, and dash board renewers. None of these products work as well as a bucket of water with an ounce of dish detergent and a rag. I have plenty of rags.