Many years ago, my retarded baby brother took his Game Boy into the bathtub to play Pokemon during bathtime. When the Game Boy drowned, my dad took the device, popped the batteries, unscrewed the back cover, and pulled the circuit board. A few hours by the fan and a trip to Radio Shack to replace a blown fuse, and the Game Boy was resuscitated.

Fast forward to last night, as I innocently knocked a water bottle onto my MacBook Air. The screen went black. Ready to perform a heroic rescue, I flipped the laptop and grabbed a screwdriver set.

But no, the screws on the underside of the Mac were no ordinary screws. They were star-shaped. Not standard torx-Stars-of-David, but pentagrams. Apple seals its products with proprietary pentagram screws. And so I helplessly stood by and watched as my only means of livelihood died a horrible drowning death. This is why I can’t have nice things 🙁

We can’t fix consumer products anymore. My dad used to commute on an old-school 2-stroke Yamaha. He regularly rebuilt the motor with the pocket tool kit that came with the bike. Now I can’t even replace my Ford Escape battery without a trip to the dealership (well it’s a hybrid).

If we don’t buy things that we can fix, we forget how to fix things. Maybe I can fix my laptop. But a replacement motherboard is only $144 less than a brand-new MacBook. Who would bother with the repair?

Stores don’t sell Game Boys or 2-strokes anymore. Adjusted for inflation, cars and computers are dirt cheap. Everything is disposable except for time. Who cares if we can’t fix anything anymore? We don’t want to fix anything anymore.