Your car s style broke down after 50,000 miles because General Motors made significant changes in the model s look every three years, to try to force you back to the showroom before the car wore out physically after five years. You continued to drive the Delta 88 not at risk to your safety but at risk to your cool. The Northstar system allows your Cadillac to travel 100,000 miles before its first scheduled maintenance, but, by the time your car reaches 100,000 miles, its technology will be three generations removed, already grandfatherly. Not long before the launch, Fermilab fired a neutrino 235 miles into the core of the planet, proving it is possible to stop launching satellites and send media messages through the earth. With the highest technology and the highest technology users, there is no middle age, just very young and very old.
Consumers live in the pressure tense.
We become nostalgic about our purchases almost at the moment we make them, knowing that they won t last long, knowing further that the best of them will last the least time. You might even say that road rage stems from the pressure tense. When we drive, the car radio provides loads of diversions. Compact disk players, tape decks, and audio books can distract us while we wait for the traffic to clear. And there s always the cell phone.