THE ACCIDENTAL LUDDITE

By CALVIN TRILLIN

According to a recent survey, the modern device Americans rank No. 1 in making their lives better is the microwave oven, which was introduced 30 years ago this autumn. Nearly 90% of American households now have microwaves, up from only 10% in 1977. The increase has been so inexorable that it's easy to envision a time when there are few enough nonmicrowave households in this country to be listed individually, branded for all to see as people who have never witnessed the miracle of a potato baked nearly instantaneously before their eyes. Our household, alas, could be on the list.

On the morning that list appears--made available in full-page ads placed in major newspapers all over the country by an aggressive microwave industry bent on total market saturation--I'd find myself creeping furtively around the neighborhood. I'd be aware that some of my neighbors know full well that I might have heated up last night's coffee on the top of the stove, taking up three or four minutes that could have been more productively spent elsewhere.

"Time waster," I can imagine a rather judgmental neighbor named Adams hissing behind my back. "Slackard."

"We've got an answering machine, Adams," I reply, knowing that answering machines finished second, just ahead of automatic teller machines. "We use ATMs all the time."

"And do you pay your bills by computer?" he inquires.

"Well, not really," I confess. We're usually a bit behind. In fact, we came to both answering machines and ATMs late. I wish I could tell people like Adams that this was a matter of principle--I wish I could say that we were reluctant to give up the personal interaction with the bank teller who cashed our checks or the solidarity with other people in line who were wondering what was taking so long--but I honestly think it just took us a while to catch on. Social scientists might call what we have technology lag.

Some years ago, we borrowed a friend's apartment in Paris, and I was struck again by the French genius for gadgets--something I've admired from the moment I saw my first minuterie, the light that's switched on just inside the door of a walk-up apartment building and goes off one minute later of its own accord. I've always thought that if there is ever an international project to send men to Mars, the U.S. will build the rocket, the British will produce the engine, and the French will contribute a sugar bowl that opens when you remove the spoon from the slot attached to it.

"And now they have a machine over there that you just put coffee and water in and it brews the coffee on its own," I said to Adams when we got home.

"You mean a coffeemaker?" Adams said. "Everybody in the U.S. has a coffeemaker."

Eventually, we got a coffeemaker. Eventually, I suppose, we'll figure out how to pay our bills by computer. And how about a microwave? I think reading about the survey made me inclined to hold off on that one. Even though we've always done without what most Americans say is the device that made their lives better, our lives don't seem so bad as they are. It's comforting to know that if we hit a rough patch, all we have to do is pay a visit to the nearest appliance store. You might say we're holding the microwave in reserve.