Planned Obsolesces

 

A policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

Did you ever look at the back of your birth certificate?

That blue or pink piece of paper that stated the moment you arrived and started breathing. The official notice of who your mother is and who your father might be. That record of where you were dropped and what medical professional caught you.

Some have footprints on them but you’ll grow out of that. A photo ID won’t work because your eyes are closed.

Well if you can find it in your family ancestry paper and look on the back, there is an expiration date. Who knew?

Did you ever turn over your wedding certificate (yet another official recording of an event that you pay for)? It tells you when you will get divorce. I’m not sure if there are multiple dates, but you get the idea.

So you come into this world and here you are. You are sucking in the air, gobbling down the plants and animals, extricating the unusable waste, propagating and then wasting away until someone puts you in the ground.

It sounds so simple.

It is.

It was all preplanned.

You didn’t think you could live forever?

You had your chances.

You were a kid. Kids get to do whatever they want. They run and jump and make noise. They explore and learn, until some big person put requirements on them to behave.

You were a student. You had prime time to learn whatever knowledge available and when you could remember what you saw or heard or read you got a gold star. You were given the opportunity to adventure into knowledge. What you did with it was your choice.

You were a grown up. You got to make your own decisions. You got to apply yourself for monitory rewards. You got to choose a partner. You got to the age where you could drive, fight, vote and drink until arrested. You could pay taxes, get insurance, accumulate debt, invest, purchase property and come home at night to a boring television show and too much alcohol. You can be stressed.

You can grow old. You now can look back. You can bargain with the kids to take care of you when you can’t make it to the bathroom in time. You can delight in the grandchildren who mess up everything and you wish you could be them again. You can spend more time horizontal than vertical and wonder why your knees hurt.

Then the expiration date arrives and there will be flowers and tears and condolences and prayers and thoughts. People will bring your family food. Maybe people can’t cook when someone dies? You get put in a box (unless you prefer the oven) and put in a hole in the ground and covered up with dirt and given a headstone that states your name, date of arrival and departure. That’s about it.

Enjoy your journey until the bell rings. Times up.