Those buttons are part of the ritual. They are part of The Way, and The Way is How It Is Done.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clark

There is a word that I like to use, but it's hard to work into everyday conversation because people don't really hear the word, and if they do hear it, they don't exactly grok my meaning. The word is "techmonology," and it isn't really a word. It's totally made up, and that goes a long way toward explaining why people don't get it. It floats around the Internet with various definitions, but I'll explain my own usage here.

tech·mo·nol·o·gy (tek mo nol' ? je), n., pl. - gies. 1. technology far more advanced than common society can comprehend, resulting in incorrect, illogical and mystical conclusions as to how and why it functions.

The application of techmonology is subjective, of course. What is technology in the hands of one may become techmonology in the hands of another, and what is techmonology today may become technology tomorrow. A good example of techmonology is my parents' entertainment system, a tangle of wires behind stacks upon stacks of components, operated by a small pile of remote controls. In the hands of my mother, it is the pinnacle of techmonology. She knows that she wants the television to produce picture and sound, but the process to make that happen is pure ritualistic incantation. She knows that she must press the proper sequence of buttons in order to summon the spirits of The Six O'Clock News, but many of the buttons she presses are completely superfluous and serve no purpose in activating the television. I've tried explaining that, but she just waves me off in irritation. Those buttons are part of the ritual. They are part of The Way, and The Way is How It Is Done. She knows that when the amplifier twinkles and dances, the stereo nymphs are pleased and will issue forth the voices of the news anchors, but the actual words on the amplifier's display are composed of runes and glyphs from an advanced alien race, and are beyond any hope of translation. Also, she operates a remote control with two hands; one to hold the remote straight out in front of her, and the other to manipulate the buttons with her index finger, as if dialing a telephone. That's not really techmonology in action—to each her own—but it makes me crazy, and I can't bear to watch her control anything remotely. It's like watching a space alien puzzle over a candy bar, ultimately deciding to eat it sideways, like corn on the cob.

Techmonology is all around us. I don't care how tech savvy you are, there's something out there that makes you say, "Look, I don't know why it works, all I know is that when I do this, that happens. So I'm just going to keep on doing this when I want that to happen." The rat doesn't know why the cheese is at the end of the maze, and it doesn't care.

I used to think that I was immune to techmonology. I used to be an eleven-year-old boy, and I've always been a geek. There was once a time when I could simply look at an object and understand the function of every button, dial and knob, while my parents fumbled to comprehend the object's possible uses, if there were other parts that it might need to work, how to determine if it was on or off, and how it got into the house to begin with. To my parents, a ColecoVision controller looked no different than the cockpit of a DC-10, and they marveled as I took to it with no instruction and no learning curve, absorbing functionality upon sight like some kind of freaky little technopath. I thought that's how it would always be, but we all know that's not how it works. Minds age, perceptions shift, and techmonology surges forth regardless.

About a year ago, I got my first iPod, the biggest one I could get my hands on. In retrospect, I may have done myself a disservice by purchasing the most mondo iPod available. I love all things in industrial strength, especially when such power is totally unnecessary, but while my friends clip their own weightless devices onto any convenient spot and forget about them, I must lug my hefty hardware around. It doesn't integrate with my person, like sunglasses or a hat or an iPod Nano. It is clearly a separate entity that must be considered and cared for, reminding me of old sitcoms in which high school students were given the assignment to look after and protect a raw egg every moment of every day. It was supposedly designed to simulate the responsibilities of child rearing, and a cracked shell forever marked you as a remorseless baby killer.

Yeah, so, my gigantic SUV of an iPod has turned out to be a pain in the ass... but it's my pain in the ass, and I love it accordingly. When it gets sick, I fret. Three months after I bought it, it got sick, and I fretted. The screen went all wonky; it darkened and took on the properties of an oil slick, a drab rainbow of swirls superimposed over the display. I took it back to The Apple Store to get it fixed or replaced but when I got there, the screen was fine. I tried to explain the problem but the attendant plainly didn't believe what I was telling her. She had never heard of such a thing happening, nor could she imagine anything that would cause it to happen. I left slightly vexed.

The next day, on my way to work, I looked at the iPod's screen, and it was back to shenanigans, lookin' like a sad old CRT monitor on its last leg. It was broken. I've seen enough technology live and die, and I know the signs of ailing hardware. When your display goes Aurora Borealis, you're seeing the first symptom of techno-cancer, and it's all downhill from there. I figured that whatever had momentarily healed my iPod the day before, it was all gone for good, so I brought it to The Apple Store once again to show the attendant, prove myself right, beam smarmily, and get a replacement. I had my smug little smirk and cocked eyebrow all ready when I presented the iPod for a second inspection, and... son of a bitch if the screen wasn't crystal clear, as ideally functional as the day I had bought it. I saw no point in repeating the argument, so I just muttered, "Aw, man," grabbed the iPod and left.

The next morning, the screen was broken again, so back to The Apple Store I went in a huff. I'm not usually so tenacious. Under normal circumstances, dead tech is casually tossed into the shit heap and is bought anew, but I had paid good money for that iPod only months prior, and I'll be damned if I'm going to settle for a marginally operational machine after dropping that kind of coin. I stopped outside The Apple Store and checked the iPod's display. All fucked up. I walked in, found my special little attendant, and showed her the screen. The screen was flawless. I wanted to throw the God-damned machine against a wall and burn the store to the ground. I didn't know what kind of cruel cosmic joke was taking place, but something needed to change, and I explained as much to the attendant. I told her that while the iPod appeared to be okay, it was indeed not okay. I wanted to exchange it for an iPod that was okay, or at least one that would stop trying to mindfuck me.

She told me I was out of luck. If she were to exchange an iPod, she had to return an iPod with a description of its defect. If it had no defect, she could not return it, and thus could not exchange it. I told her that it was defective. She told me that neither "Haunted" nor "Out To Get Me" are legitimate iPod defects. We went back and forth until it became clear that she thought I was schizophrenic, and I was not getting a new iPod that day.

"Fine." I growled, "I'll just wait until the damn thing breaks down completely, and I'll return it then."

"I look forward to that day," she chirped. I narrowed my eyes. She donned her smug little smirk and cocked her eyebrow. I turned on my heel and stormed out the door. Once outside, I jammed the earbuds deep into my ear canal and cranked up the volume, determined to ride that iPod like a whipped horse until it died a sputtering, pitiful death. Looking down to choose a playlist, I very nearly let loose an incoherent howl of demented rage, like a lunatic surprised in a trap, right there on the crowded streets of downtown Chicago. The screen was ruined.

It turned a quarter turn back toward The Apple Store and froze. I was going to charge back into that store and demand satisfaction, screaming and yelling, when it all came together. The last three days played back in my mind and a pattern emerged so clearly that I could see nothing else. I looked back down at the screen. It was rippled, colored and dimmed. I raised my sunglasses. The screen was was beautifully crisp and pristine. I dropped my sunglasses back onto the bridge of my nose, and the colors distorted before me. I sighed and hung my head.

I considered going back into The Apple Store and apologizing for my attitude, and explaining that the polarized lenses of my sunglasses caused the iPod's screen to behave oddly. I didn't have the guts, though. I haven't been back since.

Recently, I became concerned that I might have to suck it up and face my special little attendant after all. This time, my iPod was really broken. Really for real. I couldn't access the display at all, and the screen remained black regardless of any lenses I viewed it through. I could sync it up with iTunes just fine but detached from my computer, it showed no signs of life. I had to take it in. I had to get it fixed or replaced. But... not just yet.

I gave myself a few days of procrastination to mentally prepare myself for my special little attendant and her inevitable question of, "So... what was the problem with your iPod?" I never did make it to The Apple Store, though, and my special little attendant may forever have to wonder about The Mystery of the Haunted iPod. In those few days that it took for me to develop some gumption, I did what I always do when something goes awry: I bitched and moaned about it to anybody who would listen. At work, I found a fresh audience and I fired up my complaints. It's not that I expect pity or am looking for reactions, I just enjoy stomping around and hollering, "Son of a bitch!" for any reason I can conjure. I'm going to make a really great crotchety old bastard some day.

So I was at work, goin' on about my son-of-a-bitchin' iPod—"The screen is dead, and I can't get it to work, and I can't access the display, and it still syncs with iTunes, but that's all it does, and I paid good money for that gadget, and it's only been ten months since I bought it, and this is planned obsolescence at work, and if I ever see Steve Jobs walking down the street, I'm gonna sock that son of a bitch right in his eye!"—when a younger fella asked me if my Hold Switch was engaged.

I blinked at him for a moment, then asked, "What?"

"The Hold Switch. It sounds like you have the Hold Switch engaged. It's on top of your iPod and it keeps you from altering the menu on accident, when it's in your pocket and stuff." I knew what he was talking about before I even asked, and I knew with shameful certainty that the Hold Switch—which I, myself had turned on—was the source of all my recent woes. I needed but to switch it back and all would be well.

I knew he was completely correct, and I should have said as much, but instead I tried to mask my ineptitude with a lie so piteous and unconvincing that nobody even bothered to call me on my bullshit. They left me with what little dignity I seemed to believe I still had. "Uh... Hold Switch? Yeah... right. Hold Switch. Yeah... I, uh... checked that. That's not it. iPod's broken. Totally not the Hold Switch. And Stuff."

That's when it dawned on me; I had crossed a certain threshold in life. This iPod business would never have confounded me ten years ago, and anybody having approached me with similar problems back then would have been labeled a simp. Today, I occasionally detect that same half-lidded stare of contempt that I have utilized so many times, but it is leveled at me by some kid. I am not yet completely lost in a vast sea a techmonology, but the tide is rising. I certainly have my moments, and those moments are telling. The graph points predict a curve that I have already seen from up above, and I know that in due time techmonology will dominate my world view. That graph shows a point in time in which I approach my niece or nephew—or perhaps my own hypothetical child—with a lump of techmonology cupped in my hands like a sparrow with a broken wing. I present it wordlessly, arms outstretched before me, eyes worried and unknowing. I don't understand what is wrong or what will happen, but I maintain a steady belief that the child can somehow set things right. Like a tribesman before a powerful shaman, I silently implore the child to commune with the techmonology and heal it with his mysterious majicks. Upon doing so, the child will say unto me, as I have said unto my father, and he unto his, and he unto his, completing a life cycle ritual as old as flint-chipped spears: "Jesus Christ, Dad, don't you know anything?"