Unnecessary Invention

Manufacturers must devote a lot of resources to looking for ways to update and improve their products, especially since they’re not allowed to lie about them anymore – thank you cigarette industry! 

Sometimes I don’t want things to be “new” and “improved”.  The old thing was just fine and served my needs well.  So there I was in the grocery store the other day when a cheerful young thing behind a portable podium asked me if I had a dishwasher.  I do.  Then she showed me this plastic doodad about the size of a cereal bowl that looked like a tiny ferris wheel on its side.  “You load it and it automatically does the next twelve dishwasher loads!”  Yup, there were little slots for detergent cubes.  This thing would relieve me, the weary dishwasher owner, from putting in one cube at a time each time I loaded and started the washer. 

Really?  Are my fellow dishwasher owners finding it tiresome to unwrap a little cube and put it in its cubby and close the lid?  I don’t think it’s a burden.  And I certainly don’t want to have to keep track of how many loads I’ve done before I have to reload the little ferris wheel with another dozen cubes.  It just seems like a product that’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.  Dear Santa Claus: I don’t want one!