The designer's masterpiece: The old consumer's nightmare
By Michael Moriarty
web posted November 21, 2016
It's 4 AM in the morning. That is when I am usually working. I like the pitch dark quiet between 1 AM and 5 or 6 in the morning. I do my best work then.
This particular morning, however… I needed to replace the batteries in my Apple Desktop Computer's mouse.
Or so I thought.
They had run out!
Or so I thought.
I am a 75 year-old "senior". My own, physical disabilities and my old-man's-impatience constantly remind me of how "senior" I really am. I don't need any further, more embarrassing evidence of my age. I need no proofs of the fact that I am of another, entirely different and much older generation.
Now, because of the, yes, midnight-mini-nightmare I recently experienced, it dawns on me that "SLICK" is the adjective and descriptive title I must bestow upon America's younger generations.
That label is not entirely fair.
Progress must happen… but… well… Progress and the so-called Progressive Generation have changed more than merely computers.
The Progressive's certainty
that America must surrender
to a New World Order
run by the United Nations?!
That kind of what I call:
"Revolutionary American treason!"
Coming out of the smug certainty of even an old "revolutionary traitor" such as George H. W. Bush?!
Out of that treasonous campaign and strategy to destroy the traditional strength and individual freedom of the United States, the likes of what I call The Anti-Christ, George Soros and his Rabid Disciples: The Bushes, the Clintons and The Obma Nation?!
Comes a new generation of profoundly benighted and increasingly violent young tyrants!
From that generation on, we have a breed of high-scoring I.Q.'s that — for my, much slower generation — know how to secretly remind earlier and much older Americans like myself that, "You are… well… not only not cool… you are stupid! You find it impossible to replace the batteries in your Apple Computer's mouse."
I have never, until now, found replacing batters in, say, my flashlights, at all a difficult task.
My darling and, super-gifted, much younger wife has just woken up!
She will know how to replace the batteries!!!!
What? My brilliant and darling wife finds it also a challenge?!?!
Thank God!
I don't feel quite so crippled anymore!!
My darling Irene, after recognizing the bizarre difficulty inherent in the Apple Designed mouse?! One obviously created by designers who want no unnecessary or helpfully descriptive or, as they would instantly label, "tastelessly extraneous explanations".
Soon my angel recognized that the cursor is not battery powered.
She recognized on the mouse itself, as I did not, the subtly-placed receiving end of a computer cord accessory only familiar to her generation. And the need for a computer item which she had purchased for other tasks. Basically a thin, white power line to a wall outlet.
WHEW!
The only question left is, "How long must that cord remain in the mouse?"
Again, my saint of technology found the sign on my computer screen for the mouse-recharge. When that sign is completely darkened? The mouse is charged!
"You might," offered my Computer-Saviour-Super-Heroine, "want to plug both your keyboard and your mouse in every night just to be on the safe-side."
Well.
That I will do.
Fact is: I must do it now in order to give the mouse its "FULL, 100% CHARGE".
Let's talk again next week. 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty.