Among the treasures I got for Christmas: a camera. It's lovely. It's shiny. And it's small.
And when I say it's small, I mean this: it's slightly bigger than a credit card, and a whole lot teenier than my phone.
This, it appears to me, is what you'd call a trend. Cell phones are shrinking. Ditto with computers. At one time, a computer was the size of a washing machine. Today, you can cart them around in your purse.
The manufacturers have it right, of course. They know that we all have other things we need to carry. Like umbrellas, say. And lunch bags. You can't make lunch bags shrink, unless you want to turf the bananas and the water bottles and the ginger snaps, and who the heck wants to do that?
But back to the camera.
Did I mention that it's small?
It is, well, perhaps two inches by four, and capable of not only taking photographs, but also videos, and no doubt major motion pictures. For all I know, it has an Oscar in its future.
Where this is going, I can only guess. My last camera was a bulky four inches by eight. The one before that? Almost the size of a toaster - and that was without the lens.
At the rate this is going, I am betting that my next camera will be the size of a matchbook. I will have to use a magnifying glass to turn it on and a pair of tweezers to replace the battery.
Small, I agree, is good; heaven knows, less is more.
But still. I'm not sure I could operate a camera - let alone find it - when it becomes the size of a postage stamp.
Heck, a camera the size of a postage stamp might get lost in the cutlery drawer or in the shoe rack - or in my pocket.
I might even inadvertently attach a camera the size of a postage stamp to an envelope and mail it to my sister.
Compact does not always mean simple, I'm afraid.
I do not want a camera the size of a washing machine, and I do not want a camera the size of a toaster. But I also don't want a camera the size of matchbook or a postage stamp.
To the manufacturers of cameras, I say this: Hey, folks, we live in an aging population. We're wearing bifocals. We're wearing trifocals.
We're buying largeprint books and largeprint magazines.
Sure, we like all your newfangled things. But just give us a camera the perfect size - let's say, the size of a camera.
