By Elizabeth Peavey

Pièces de résistance

After falling all over myself in my last column trumpeting the numerous life-altering changes I’ve made since the start of this year (that is, if you consider buying a new wallet, trying it out for a week, and then switching back to my old one life-altering), I was reminded of the things I chose not to change in 2009, things that drive people crazy.

Take the cell-phone issue. Now, I am not against cell phones. In fact, I am perfectly happy to borrow yours any time I’m in need of one. And because my husband, John, is a normal person and owns a cell phone, I always have one at my disposal when we travel. The point is, I spend most of my time sitting at my computer, and there’s a perfectly fine desk model parked right beside me. (Picture Fred and Wilma’s ram’s horn telephone.) If I’m not home, I’m generally en route to somewhere I can be reached upon arrival. Sure, there have been occasions when a cell phone would’ve come in handy — like, say, the time I was at Marden’s and there was a run on a shipment of specially priced Little Giant Ladders, which I thought John had been lusting after. If I’d had a cell phone, I could’ve called him and found out that he lusted not after the Type 1 Little Giant that Marden’s had in stock, but the Type 1A Classic Ladder, “as seen on TV,” and thus avoided having to now step around our inferior Little Giant (still in its box) in our basement.

Of course, anyone who knows us would probably wonder how John could have knowledge of the Little Giant, or anything else “seen on TV.” That’s because we’re among the hapless saps who are still clinging to our rabbit ears and analog TV. OK, so clinging isn’t exactly the right word. It’s more like we’re holding out. While we watched the crawl on the bottom of our screen for an entire year, counting down the doomsday numbers until the February 2009 switch to digital, we did nothing about it. Even when MPBN made an early switch in January of this year, depriving this household of Antiques Roadshow and the mating rituals of dung beetles on Nature, we did not act. 

Nor did we when WPFO and WGME followed suit in February, even though the deadline had been kicked to June. Actually, it was kind of exciting, like the opening scenes of the 1960s western drama Branded, in which actor Chuck Connors is “cashiered” or dismissed from the cavalry due to misconduct (which wasn’t true; go listen to the show’s theme song and hear the real story!). First, his hat (MPBN) is dashed to the ground by his commanding officer. Then the epaulets (WGME) and buttons (WPFO) are rended from his uniform. The final gesture, snapping his saber in two, represents to me what June 12 will be like, when WMTW and WCSH pull their analog plug, taking Jeopardy and Fred Nutter with them.

Now, despite my 20-year hiatus from the tube in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I have nothing against TV, either (as you might note from my references). I just don’t like to be bullied, and I feel this switch has been a bullying move of the first order, hitting hardest those with the fewest economic and technical resources to deal with it: the poor, the elderly, and the hopelessly Luddite. I consider my resistance to be an act of civil disobedience. After all, do you think Thoreau would’ve opted for Pay-Per-View in his cell? (And can’t you just hear Emerson now? “Hey, Henry, whatcha watching in there?”)

This really drives people we know batty, especially our friend Dave, who had TiVo before John and I graduated from our VCR to a DVD player and who was watching TV shows on his iPhone at the gym while I was still listening to CDs on my Discman. (I know. Using a Discman is about as cool as carting a Victrola around the weight room, but I refuse to buy another piece of landfill-destined electronic crap until this one expires.) 

One further change I chose not to make this year is to color my hair. My friend Joyce has been gently suggesting (OK, bugging me) to dye my hair for the past 20 years, since those first gray strands starting appearing in my late twenties, but I continue to hold out. My reasoning is twofold. First, coloring requires maintenance, and I’m not big on upkeep. Of course, this wasn’t as much of an issue when I was younger and could play the “cute slob-girl” card. But there’s a line you cross as you get older when “adorably disheveled” quickly devolves into Grey Gardens gross-out, so one needs to be careful. 

And that brings me to my second point of resistance. I am not ashamed of my age and feel no need to conceal it. I did “young,” and I did young better than most. To me, coloring my hair is an apology for making it this far. And in my case, “this far” means 50 next month. Fifty! While I can’t believe I’m about to dip my toe in the Centrum-Silver pool, don’t retire my number just yet. 

Or, as my mom, who has recently had some health issues, said one good day in a particularly bad stretch, when she could focus on nothing but the color of my hair: “Such a young face, such an old head.” Amen, sister. Amen.

One last thing Elizabeth Peavey chose not to change this year? Being a jerk. Her column appears here monthly.