It all started innocently enough about six years ago when I finally agreed to get a cell phone. I lagged well behind most of my peers in getting one because I stubbornly did NOT want to always be that accessible. I gave in when I realized it would be safer making my monthly drives over wintry mountain passes if I could call for help if the need arose (presuming I wasn’t in a dead zone to start with). Of course, it quickly became, if not indispensible, then certainly a huge convenience in all sorts of situations. Over time, I have gradually acquired other devices that once seemed unnecessary or frivolous but which I now would be hard pressed to do without. It struck me the other day as I took possession of my daughter’s hand-me-down laptop that I have become gadgetized. This is the process whereby one starts accumulating these modern marvels at an exponentially increasing rate. It is as if the gadgets one already possesses create a force field which attracts others of their kind. I’m talking about anything that needs a charger, power cord, earphones, batteries and/or a service contract and an inch-thick owner’s manual or a three-hour online tutorial to teach you how to use it. I refuse to be someone who won’t embrace new technologies because of the effort required to learn something new, but I do find it difficult to make the time to program/download/integrate whenever a new gizmo comes within my orbit. For instance, my daughter Jenny gifted me with the “free” MP3 player which came with her new laptop (which is how I got her old one), and now I am faced with putting my personal stamp in music, programs and files on both devices. Frankly, that is not how I want to spend several hours on a lovely summer day (and now that Jenny’s back at school, I can’t bribe her to do it for me). Ah, well, at least when I’m done, I’ll have a killer “Roadtrip Songs” playlist and a good excuse to have looked at all the old picture files. (If you’d like to share your nominations for great road tunes, I’d love to hear them and add them in!)  Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader