Technological Memento

We were at Lowe's the other day, and Ian wanted in the worst way for me to get him a light-switch - so much so, that he walked off and found them in one of the aisles of that sprawling emporium, and pointed out how cheap they were. He was under the impression that Mommy had promised to get him a light-switch.

I thought, as silly as this sounds, that Mommy had perhaps mentioned that she planned to have an electrician install light-switches in some of the bedrooms upstairs that don't have them (did I mentioned we got this house on the cheap?), but we had other things to fix, so we probably wouldn't get to that for awhile. Ian understood that that was the intended project, and that it was on hold, but it wasn't the installation itself that he cared about - he just wanted the light switch itself, separate from any superfluous electrical construct - something he could hold in his hand and admire, in all of its technical detail. He had thought (and maybe he's right) that Amy had told him that when a new light-switch was installed in his bedroom, he could have the old, "out-going" one. And he was only upset that he never reaped the spoils of that project - he didn't care about the project itself.

But before I understood all that, when we were still in Lowe's arguing about whether I was going to buy him a light fixture, we had this snippet of conversation:

Ian: I always wanted a light-switch to remind me of something.

Me: Of what, Baby?

Ian: Well... to remind me of technology.

(September 25, 2010)