We’re getting a new laptop for the holidays. It’s got a bigger hard-drive than my desktop. It has a DVD-burner, internal wireless Internet pickup, the whole nine yards. It isn’t terribly expensive by laptop standards. You could spend a lot more, but it will do what we need to do.

Actually, it will do about 100x what we need to do, and therein lies the problem. I have, through years of conspicuous consumerism, reached the point where I do not want what I do not need. If I can buy half a sandwich, I will. If a salesman offers me a free B if I buy A, I tell him to keep his B. If I wanted B, I tell him, I’d buy one.

It really bugs me that one of the fastest growing industries in America is the storage rental unit. First, they are ugly. They look like a crowded neighborhood full of one-car garages with all the houses removed. Second, they are a waste of time, space and money. I know. I rented a storage cubicle in a downtown Portsmouth office building for ten years. I paid $100 a month for a wire cage full of pure unadulterated crap that no longer fit in my office next door. Had I known it was crap at the time, I would not have paid $12,000 over a decade to store it there. I thought it was gold and the empty space was convenient, and a bargain to boot. But when the time came to move it all somewhere else, I realized my mistake. So I moved about 200 boxes of crap to the street and let the city trash collector take it away. I was so embarrassed owning so much junk, that I dumped about 10 boxes a week until it was gone. I brought a dozen of the boxes to my house, but pretty soon I’m going to throw them out too. Crap, I have discovered, is not a good investment. I guess every American has to learn that lesson for himself.

This new laptop will be crap eventually. I still own two older ones going back to when they first appeared in the late 80s. They still work, sort of, but they don’t do what I really want a laptop to do. The new one doesn’t either.

What I want is a laptop that does not require electricity, something I can take anywhere and just write on. I’m a writer, and that is pretty much all I do. I used to use a typewriter and before that, a pencil, but the computer still has an edge over carbon paper and White Out. So what I want is a computer that has a small memory, does word processing and functions on a deserted island. I don’t want to surf the web from a coffee shop or do my taxes while I’m driving or download video games while watching a DVD. I own other machines that do all that.

So what I really need is one of those lime-green laptops developed by MIT for Third World children. But they don’t manufacture them yet, and when they do, you can’t buy one. They will be distributed in huge quantities to schoolchildren around the world. They have a limited memory and a hand crank that generates the power. They are sturdy and simple. They do what I need to get done and not much more. If Ghandi were alive, he would definitely use one.

Instead, I’m getting a much more expensive machine that does 100x what I need to do. I even paid extra for the extended battery that will give me five or six hours between charges. I asked the manufacturer if it comes with an optional hand crank, but it doesn’t. It does come with a lot of other options, but it was all crap.

Last year I gave away less for Christmas than I did the year before. We’ve almost cleaned out the basement and next year I may start on the attic. We're giving away old books. We've had three yard sales. When I buy something these days, I try to get rid of something else. My wife has cut us down to only 10 channels on our Dish TV account. In fact, we get so few channels, that the company assessed us a $5 monthly nonconsumption fee. We’re paying more in order toget less, like those people who eat in fancy restaurants.

I don’t know where all this is headed. It’s a brave new world. I’m not trying to prove anything. I just don’t want things the way I used to, especially at Christmas. It might be a vitamin deficiency. A couple more decades and I may end up sitting in a room dressed in a cloth robe with only a single bowl and a spoon – and a $100 laptop – if I can get one by then.

For more on the $100 Laptop visit MIT Media Labs

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