[wordup] Man does not live by usability alone

[Adam Shand]

From: http://oblivio.com/road/03092001.shtml

20 September 2003 | Nothing

I’ve had nothing to say, nor seen any reason to say anything, so I 
haven’t. Yesterday I bought a shower curtain and shower curtain liner. 
It was kind of a big deal. I used to use just a liner, because the 
fancier sort of curtain seemed silly, a useless bit of decoration, but 
something got into me yesterday and I decided that man does not live by 
usability alone.

I’m feeling surprisingly good about it today, although it dawned on me 
this morning that when it’s time to replace the liner, I will need to 
carefully remove both the liner and curtain from the hooks on which they 
hang, before hanging the new liner. Maybe that doesn’t sound so 
significant to you, but you have to remember that I’m used to just 
tearing down the liner and putting up a new one. This will add another step.

Also, perhaps because I’ve had nothing to say, I recently gave in and 
bought a cell phone. I hate it already. I spent an hour trying and 
failing to figure out how to leave a greeting for when someone calls. 
Then I made the mistake of emailing my new cell phone number to the 
dozen or so friends I see regularly, figuring that these are the folks 
who might actually need it — say, when one of us is late to meet the 
other. The email I sent went:

   I have a cell phone now. The number is [...]. Please don’t
   call me on for a while: I’m a little freaked out.

Right away three different friends decided to call me, as a joke. 
Evidently all my friends have the same sense of humor. I refused to 
answer the thing and tried instead to figure out a way to turn it off, 
which I failed to do because the user manual sucks. In the end I stuffed 
it at the bottom of my laundry hamper, which is where it will remain 
until I decide my next step. If I forget it’s there and end up including 
it in my next load of laundry, so be it.

Oh: A short time later the phone started ringing again, so I dug it up 
and stuffed it inside four pairs of athletic socks (eight socks into 
all, one inside another) and returned it to the bottom of the hamper. 
Then I called it on my regular phone to confirm I couldn’t hear it, and 
I definitely couldn’t. As it rang I covered my regular phone with my 
hand and walked over to the hamper and stood there listening.

Nothing. Silence.