the comfortable tyranny that calls us

swimming against the current

“Mother! I’d rather do it myself!”

whined a voice in a commercial

that went viral in the terms of the 1970’s,

something there is in me that is put off

by cake mixes and GPS and calculators:

I want to cook from scratch,

to reconnoiter and seek to find the way on my own,

and to figure math with the computer between my ears

and a piece of paper my screen,

I want to try to figure what a word of phrase means like a detective

before I slip into telling a servant to do it for me,

asking Google to tell me like it is,

each new tool sprouts with bells and whistles

that call us to want it,

for now I resist enough to be somewhat free

from the comfortable tyranny of the servant calling the shots

as much as it would,

my stomach keeps telling me to say “yes” to the smorgasbord

while my girth keeps reminding me that “no” can be better

if I want to be my own master,

I should swim against the current of what is easy,

I still push my lawn mower,

yet I feel the call of sitting and steering.

by Henry H. Walker
May 8, ’14

images courtesy of Google Images( note the irony)