Everyone from Monday morning quarter-backs to the guy whose candidate did not get elected plays this game: The Blame Game.

"We Americans love to pass the blame. We can always come up with a reason to blame others for our own problems. Consider the following:

IF a woman burns her thighs with the hot coffee she’s holding while driving, she blames the restaurant.
IF your teenage sons kills himself or the next door neighbor, you blame the rock ‘n roll music or the musician he liked.
IF you smoked three packs a day for 40 years and died of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco
company.
IF your daughter gets pregnant by the football captain, you blame the school for poor sex education…."

So goes the comments of a writer who hails from Tampa, Florida.

Some blame is deserving, and as such comes from all walks of life.

What do you do when your eight-year old refrigerator starts acting like it’s tired of doing its job? You begin taking the contents out and store them in your 60 year-old refrigerator you use as an extra in the basement; then start shopping for a new fridge. My Dad and his wife bought this 60 year-old refrigerator when they got married and both of them are gone now but their refrigerator lives on. (Admittedly they did have it serviced once.)

Blame cannot help but be laid at the feet of someone sometimes. "Built-in obsolescence" is a term being passed around but I cannot help but question such a "sophisticated plan". However, the sales pitch to "buy" an extended warranty does bother me a bit. If the manufacturer is that afraid their product wont outlive their ONE YEAR warranty on the compressor I cannot help but wonder about the quality of the other parts of the appliance. Isn’t it enough to have to buy a replacement for a refrigerator that is just eight years old? I cannot help but ask this question because the sales clerk informed me that such an appliance now only has a life-expectancy of 8 to 12 years and the guarantee is now one year on the compressor instead of the five year warranty formerly carried.

One other comment on this "retired" refrigerator and I will quit my blame game. The new refrigerator is just like the "old one" we just replaced – it is noisy. Fortunately the owner’s manual mentions this as a precautionary move to avoid a lot of mail or crank calls from new owners. Whatever their excuses, I am not convinced the "new is better" when the old refrigerators barely made a soft humming noise compared to the "clunk" "ching" and "chitty chitty bang bang" sounds like there is an ice-machine working overtime. Many years ago there was even a real quiet running refrigerator – and it operated using a GAS flame! I would almost bet some of those units are still quietly doing their job.

Among the interesting bits of pleasant words and information in the monthly bundle* of the American Amateur Press Association (of which I have been a member for 20 years), I found the following lines of rhyme which hopefully will provide a bit of humor to help forget our recent Catch-22 war of technology.

Bird legs bend backwards
It’s a strange sight to see
But their feet are on forward
Just like you and me.
I wonder what difference
It makes to our toes
To peek around knees
Or stare straight at our nose.

Poetry copyrighted by David A. George,
Santa Clara, California, 2006. Used with permission.

*(If link for AAPA does not work, please try this: http://members.aol.com/aapa96/index.html)

THE WORDWRIGHT - Thanks for visiting our website! If you want to read my wife's essays, just type in "Jean Venrick" in the Search Window (do not include quote marks). June 3, 2006 we celebrated our 55th Wedding Anniversary; for some reason close friends tell her she ought to receive an award. I'm not sure what they mean by such a remark.
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