A fridge too far

In the olden days, a fridge did a relatively simple job of keeping things cold; Spam, for example.

Now they can apparently send you it as well.

That’s the thing about technology. You chug along quite nicely, grateful for the really clever stuff, like pacemakers, satellite navigation systems, and the ability to turn the sound off on the TV from the comfort of your armchair whenever Miley Cyrus gets a mention.

Then, without you having even considered that it might need to be a ‘thing’, you’re trying to figure out why someone might feel the need to own a toilet that can be flushed using an app on their iPhone. Or how knowing how many miles your twitter friends have run because their automatic logging system insists on telling you, is actually making your life better in any remotely measurable way.

Whilst you might expect to find chips in your freezer, it’s the non-potato based ones that are now posing an unprecedented threat. It seems that the proliferation of domestic appliances containing clever computer components has now caused some of them to turn to the dark side, like some kind of white goods Terminator.

With the ability to connect to the web to tell you if your mange tout is too warm, they’ve also become compromised as they lack the anti-virus programmes that your laptop hides, cowering, behind. And now they’re hell-bent on destruction. Admittedly, much like the Daleks before they discovered they could go up stairs, they can’t easily instigate a rampage – especially as their proximity to plug sockets is their source of life.

So they’ve used their sentience to start a stealth attack on their creators, pinging millions of ‘spam’ emails out, offering you the heady joys of bargain Viagra, Rolex watches, or the rather odd advice that you’ve received a Fax (I can only assume it was bored Hostess Trolley from 1986 doing that last one).

Instead of looking like a bright, tech-enabled future, where everything works seamlessly and enhances our existence, the dark, digital, clouds are rolling in, enveloping us all in a sinister miasma of kitchen appliance evil.

Before you know it, your kettle will be ‘sexting’ you, whilst the toaster is busy using your credit card details to get baguettes sent by air from the finest boulangerie in Paris.

The washing machine, thanks to it’s subscription to usedgrundies.com, literally will be washing your dirty laundry in public, whilst the coffee machine has a heated argument with the shower about who is steamier, and hogs all the bandwidth on your Wifi connection.

Next time you hear an odd clonk in the kitchen, it probably is because something in there is up to no good. Who knows? Right at this very second they could be trawling through my passwords and hacking into the North West Evening Mail’s systems to prevent me spreading the terrifyi... XXX USER ACCESS TERMINATED XXX

This post first appeared as my "Thank Grumpy it's Friday" column in the North West Evening Mail on the 31st of January 2014. The paper added "It's all just" to the title, and chopped out 35 words - you can see the version they used here, although it is uncredited, and plonked straight into their archive section, thus ensuring instant oblivion for a column I was actually quite pleased about. Maybe it was an old shredder's final revenge...

Apart from odd words being removed, the 'white goods terminator' line got the chop, plus the hostess trolley revenge part and the shower and coffee machine's hogging of bandwidth. May they be remembered fondly by those they left behind.

(Still on the homegrown compilation CDs at the moment. Just to prove what an eclectic taste I have in music, this one has so far featured ELO, They Might Be Giants and Kim Wilde...)