Why the Luddites Knew what they were Doing

Okay, so Christmas is over, and now my (almost 3-year-old) daughter has all these new tech-toys. Like a game system, which of course my husband had to buy for her, complete with a Dora game. Her favorite part (no lie) is watching someone else play the game. But the controller on this thing (and I was raised in a techie-type family, so it's not like it's your grandma we're talking about here) spins around, for easier controllability. Excuse me, but how does that make anything easier? Especially for a toddler who still doesn't know right from left? Because as soon as you rotate the freaking thing, moving the joystick to the right no longer moves Dora to the right; now she goes to the left.

And then I bought her this awesome stuffed dog that has earphones. You can hook it up to a cd player, mp3 player, or similar device, and it plays music. How cute, I thought. We'll get a nice, cheap cd player and she can dance around and no one will care too much when it breaks. No, my husband has to buy her a "cheap" mp3 player. Because it's "smaller" so it won't get "broken" as easily when said child is dancing around to the music, he says. Gullible me, I say sure.

This thing is tiny. With a tiny little button for controlling it. Push the middle, and it's supposed to "play" or "pause." The bottom arrow is supposed to change the volume (but somehow, pushing only the bottom arrow is both volume "up" and volume "down"). The top arrow is the menu button. The side arrows change selections. And yet, somehow, instead of getting it to play the music I can clearly see that it downloaded off the computer, all I can get it to do is go to the voice recorder mode. So there are now something like 15 voice recordings of me saying things like, "How do you get this thing to play music?" and "Stop freaking recording me!" and "GFPHOEPWCNECOWEFOM!!!!!"

Finally, in exasperation, I just turn it off. This is the key. When I turn it back on, it is now in music playing mode. I quickly hook it up to the dog with earphones (the whole reason we bought the stupid thing) and hand it triumphantly over to my daughter, even making the stuffed dog dance to the music. She takes the dog, promptly pushes the buttons and starts recording her own voice, and then asks me where the music went.