...and I am an addict

It all began when a shady looking shyster in an alpaca coat and with a shifty look gave me a sample of something that has over the years given me unimaginable highs and some quite depressing lows.

Actually, it was not really a shady-looking shyster, merely my sister; and I have no idea what her coat was made of, but I have always wanted to write something about alpaca coats because it is a name associated with drug lords and deviance.

Anyway, what she gave me was a little battery-operated nose-hair remover, and it got me going on a tumultuous path of gadget addiction.

I was a pushover. Because, being somewhat hirsute in the nasal department, I had been driven to frustration trying to rid myself of the undergrowth up my snout by trying unsuccessfully to force my mother’s sewing scissors up my nostrils and finally resorting to ripping clumps of the stuff out with a pair of long-nosed pliers.

Now I am surrounded by all manner of gadgets, from power-enhanced laptops to an array of global positioning devices that would do an Airbus A380 proud.

I have an eReader that allows me to download books instantly, no matter where I am in the world; and some watches that can not only calculate exactly how many gallons of aviation fuel will be used on a kulula.com flight between Johannesburg and George, but at the same time tell me the time in Uttar Pradesh.

I am now saving madly for a pocket watch that has hot and cold running water as well as sewage disposal.

But gadget addiction is not without its frustrations. For instance, when I was first in line for a touchscreen cellphone and finally had the little beauty in my hands, I was so happy I could have burst – and very nearly did.

Being of an age where my hearing has declined somewhat, I had to push the phone against my ear to hear what a caller was telling me. So, what happened was that my ear touching the screen would activate the camera, open Microsoft Word and an array of spreadsheets, and then finally started dialling numbers in my contact list at random.

At the end of the call, it took me half an hour to shut down all the programmes my ear had opened, by which time I had completely forgotten who had called me and why.

Then there are those mobile gadgets that one is able to populate with applications – or apps, as we junkies call them – which can show you what your child would be like if you had sex with Angelina Jolie or Queen Elizabeth.

Apps that would allow you to use your mobile device for trout fishing anywhere in the virtual world without getting out of bed; and even one that when you shake your mobile like a tin of spray paint and then push a virtual button, it hisses just like the real thing except this is play-play.

Now, in order to get the best of these apps, any South African gadget freak will know that this needs to be done online from the apps store in the United States.

But, every time you try and access that store some annoying little gnome hidden away in the deepest recesses of the Internet automatically diverts you to the equivalent store here in South Africa, which does not have nearly as many applications.

However, some bright spark found out that when you are registering on the American site, instead of putting in your own address, you log on to a website called fakenames.com which will give you an American name, address, phone number and all sorts of other information to make the host computer in the apps store in America believe you are a real live citizen of the USA instead of a sneaky bustard in South Africa trying to diddle your local dealer out of a sale.

Of course, I would never do something like that because gadget freaks are very often tempted to stray from the path of righteousness.

And who knows, one day you may be using a fake American name and address and the next you could be using a virtual can of spray paint or nose-hair remover to launch an attack on Bangladesh. It is a fine line.

It is not easy being addicted to gadgets. Your friends and family tend to chastise you for blowing your money on useless knick-knacks while allowing the family cat to starve.

You also get depressed by continuous eye-rolling from people you try to impress with your latest digital picture frame, which can switch, at the press of a button, from photographs of Auntie Helen and her chihuahua to a soft-porn slide show of Helena of Hermanus and her whatchamacallit.

So, you have to have an excuse.

Mine was to wangle myself an appointment to the board of a technology company, with the result that I am no longer considered a gadget addict but rather simply a rather ingenious geriatric follower of high-tech fashion. ▲

Chris Moerdyk