Most Improved Bowler

They don't make things like that anymore.

My mom loves to tell the story of how she bowled the best game of her life the night before she gave birth to me. I still have the "Most Improved Bowler" trophy that she won; an impressive four inch high marble base, with a silver statuette of a very elegant lady in a skirt—bowling.

As luck would have it, they also invented the microwave that week, and my mom won it. The very first microwave in existence was roughly two-and-a-half feet long and two feet wide. It was loud, and so powerful that it dimmed the lights when we used it.  That enormous piece of imperfect counter top radiation came into our house when I was a newborn, and didn't make its exit until my sister bought my mom a new one, somewhere around the year 2000.  I was 27.

Appliances are not meant to last that long, and its presence in our home during all of the formative years of my life is fucking terrifying. I would love to blame all my bad decision making on the fact that I used to love to rest my forehead on it and watch my food cook. But I'm pretty sure my sister did that too, and she's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

Of course, we tried to buy my mom one sooner, but not only did she not want a new one, she absolutely refused to allow the replacement of the damn thing.  My sister had to sneak it out of the house. Literally. If my memory serves me right, my mom started to cry when she saw its shiny, digital replacement. And they weren't tears of joy. Imagine taking the old family dog away from a 9-year-old, killing it in the night, and trying to replace it with a bunny. Now imagine that look on the face of a 60-year-old woman.

The microwave wasn't the only archaic appliance we had in that house. Remember when electronics were also furniture?  Why make a necessary piece of household equipment small and efficient when it could be enormous, and also a piece of non-functional furniture?  Our TV sat about five inches from the floor, on a swivel base. The TV itself was about a 40 inch. The size of the shiny wood siding that housed it was about a 3-and-a-half foot cube. It was enormous. We got it in 1978 when we moved to California, and my mom didn't get rid of it until we refused to pack it for her move to Florida in 2003. Only one button worked on the remote, the channel up button. Do you know how incredibly frustrating it is to have to cycle through 52 channels to get to the one you want? Very. I mean, never enough to make us get off our asses and walk to the TV—but still.

My mother still brings that TV up.  When we finally convinced her not to pack her 300 pound soul mate up for the move, she gave it to a tenant she was renting a room to.  Boy is she pissed that it's still working, and not in her possession.  I saw Mike when I went back to San Jose. Do you know that he still has that TV? He loves it. He says it’s the best TV he's ever had. It really did have a nice picture. And it was so different! The way you could watch it in the living room, and swivel it around an also watch it in the dining room.  
They don't make things like that anymore. 

I’m thinking about this now, because I’ve taken to looking up things I owned as a teenager and in my twenties on eBay. I also just turned 50. There’s just something about looking at those things I used to own.

I don’t have any severe attachments to appliances, but I am starting to understand not wanting to part with things you’ve held onto for years. Welcome to aging. Welcome to your youth slipping away. Welcome to memories attached to things that were around, when you were younger and better in so many ways.