A modern day kitchen, similar to my experience.
The oven is large enough to bake two turkeys side by side. Our friends never eat turkey but just knowing they could cook two of these large birds side by side, something no other member of their family could do, filled our friends with pride.
Shortly after the installation of the new kitchen, tragically, and unexpectedly, this dear woman died.
A couple of years ago, while attending to family responsibilities I stayed for one week in the house alone. Knowing my weakness for home made bread, my friend, the widower, had made a loaf especially for me and left it sitting ready to cut on the still gleaming, black and gold kitchen bench. But I had to find a knife to cut this crusty, aromatic masterpiece. Would you know, in this miracle of modern-design kitchen, I couldn’t find a bread knife or any large sharp knife anywhere!
I searched drawers and cupboards for a bread knife, or any large sharp knife. It was hopeless. I reached the conclusion that in this ultra-modern kitchen slicing and dicing must have been achieved by a laser device. It was only after I had brutalized and mangled the loaf with a table knife that I saw them. Sharp knives of every shape and size, attached to a magnetic strip on the wall, under an overhanging cupboard. So simple; so elegant. To my mind, these knives had been invisible.
I needed to heat some soup. Like everything else in the kitchen, their microwave was top of the tech world, gleaming with metallic surrounds and settings that every French gourmet cook would demand and you could actually speak to it. But, this was not helpful for an ordinary bloke. I wanted to heat a bowl of soup.
The best I could manage was a ten seconds thawing cycle. In desperation I phoned my friend who had baked the bread for me and who thought I was enjoying his home, to request a decode of the instructions. However, he also was mystified by this space-age microwave’s instructions. If I had asked him how to load rampaging bulls from a holding pen onto a stock truck, his instructions would have been clear and precise. But how to work this pinnacle of microwave cooking was clearly beyond him. I pretended I understood and hung up. Minutes later, my friend’s daughter who is a gourmet cook, phoned in and in plain language, she explained how to activate the heating cycle. She even offered FaceTime step by step instructions. I declined that offer but said “Yes, yes” to her explanation. When her call ended, I was no wiser.
In the backyard there was an old-style barbecue and plenty of twigs and dry wood; but that also seemed too much trouble to heat a cup of soup. Finally, I heated the soup in the gleaming micro-wave, ten seconds thawing cycle at a time. Tedious!
My friend’s daughter’s dream-kitchen is quite different to her mother’s creation. I don’t think her oven (if she has one), could ever roast two turkeys, side by side. The 2024 dream kitchen is spacious, uncluttered and gleaming white. No sign of bowls and whirring blades of older style appliances. In the one corner of the bench in what was obviously pride of place, sat a large, white, egg-shaped ‘something.’ “I do most of my meat preparation and cooking in this,” she told me. This celestial looking cooking appliance or device is computer controlled. I think she uses her phone to set it up to cook. Believe it!
It’s not just dream kitchens that are different. I recently had an unsettling encounter in Australia’s top department store, David Jones. The glam and the glitch is the same, but staffing is different. In the section I visited, my impression was that it was staffed by high-school dropouts.
I was poking through the racks, as you do, looking for specials. As to be expected, none of the sale items were my size. While doing this, I heard the staff being briefed to look out for a little old man who looks rather confused. As I wasn’t in any hurry, I took up the challenge. I have always been keen on helping seniors, especially old men. But my scouting bore no results. Bratty children with inattentive parents, yes; but no sign of a confused, little old man. I was going to report the results of my search to the retail assistants. Then one looked up and fixed his gaze on me. Suddenly, it hit me. These young bumpkins had characterised me as the confused, little old man. The cheek. The bloody cheek!
I don’t think it has dawned on the David Jones emporium empire, but right at that moment they had lost a potentially, big spending customer. Look and learn retailers. Don’t push your customers into categories. We will teach you who is confused. Seniors of the world ‘unite’.
