Laziness and labour-saving devices

There's a telling contrast between worldviews in Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods. Laura's Pa jubilantly recounts to Ma the efficiency of the new threshing machine, which he took the initiative to hire out and bring to the farms in the area: 'It threshed as much wheat in a morning as Henry and I could have threshed in a week, and the straw's cleaner and the wheat better than we could have done using winnows.' Pa is all for progress and efficiency.

Almanzo's Father, on the other hand, disdains those modern farmers who employ new-fangled contraptions: 'All it saves is time, son, and what are you going to do with time on those long, winter evenings? Sit by the fire and twiddle your thumbs?'

In the spirit of scientific research, I think I have determined exactly the right formula to measure whether an invention is an efficient, time-saving device, or a silly, lazy shortcut: whether or not I would do it.

For instance, I use microwaves, washing machines, and dishwashers. Those are clearly marvels of modern invention, and well worth the investment. Doing all the tasks manually that these machines accomplish for me would require far more time, effort, and materials than I am willing to put forth, and besides, these machines use far less energy than it would take to do it the long way. It's definitely a cost-effective solution.

On the other hand, there are things like pre-cooked bacon, no-rub contact solution, and detergent balls.

I have the unique opportunity to review such an impractical and wasteful system as the contact solution because it came free in last month's Walgreen's rebate. And, while it worked nicely and saved maybe a few seconds of my life every night, I must reiterate again and again that the only reason it worked for me was because it was free. Otherwise, I would never have tried it.

The premise is that instead of pouring contact solution into your palm and rubbing the lenses for five seconds, you pop the lenses into the special upright case, fill the bottle to the fill line, and soak the lenses overnight, where an intense solution that includes hydrogen peroxide cleans the lenses for you. If your time is so valuable that you can't spare five seconds to clean your lenses like the rest of us peasants do, then this product might be for you. On the other hand, you spend about that long fitting the lenses into the special case, filling the bottle, and screwing it together, so I guess this really only works for those people that, for some reason, really hate washing their contacts. But you still have to stick your finger in your eye.

The 4-oz bottle lasted me less than a week, so for $6.99/bottle, that comes to over a dollar a day, just to get out of washing your contact lenses. This strikes me as a very expensive way to get out of doing work.

Then there are the laundry balls, which I haven't actually tried yet, but which I can't help feeling must fall far short of their touted ability to help you keep up with the wash. I can't speak for the majority of the desperate housewives out there, but as for me and my house, the thing that prevents us from keeping up with the laundry better comes in the putting-away department, not in the loading-the-washing-machine stage. How many times have you found yourself thinking, 'I really must run a load of laundry today!' and then followed up that thought with, 'Oh, but that would entail measuring and pouring a capful of detergent! Oh me, the very thought is exhausting! Perhaps I can put it off for another day'? No, nor I. How lazy would you have to be to be daunted by the prospect of measuring and pouring laundry detergent??