I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to that, especially in the technology/appliance department.
Case in point: my breadmaker. My mom gave it to me for Christmas–two years ago. All my friends have them, and sing their praises to the heavens. Me, I was frightened of it. I think it was because I was afraid I’d screw it up, even though it’s supposed to be easier than a microwave to operate.
So, I’ve got this lovely breadmaker that’s never been used. Until now.
A friend at work made some bread and brought it in to work. It was soooooooo good. I finally decided to make the leap. I dragged up my breadmaker from the basement–but I couldn’t find the directions. So, I called my mom. I fudged the truth a bit–I told her I’d used it, but it had been a looooooong time, and I just couldn’t quite remember what I was supposed to do. She gave me some directions.
So now my breadmaker is in the kitchen, and it’s running. I’m hoping that it works. If this bread turns out, I may never buy bread again.
Oh yeah–I’m also still running AOL 4.0, because I’m scared of 6.0.
Never mind how long it took you. If you were really afraid you would have sold the bread machine, or put it on a shelf and forgot where it was. In any case I think lots of us are sort of afraid of making fools of ourselves, which is the real reason for not trying something new don’t you think? Whatever it is I’m glad you decided to try the bread machine. Just know that even if you have “failures” (sometimes my bread rises so high it pushes the lid open!) some parts will still be edible (the bottom of the loaf still tasted great.) Worst case would be that you throw away the bread but your kitchen smelled terrific for a couple hours; how bad is that?
Not in the slightest, unless there is a greater than 90% chance of death associated with The New Thing.
I don’t think I got much of the fear gene. A guy painter friend of mine calls me when he has a particularly difficult thing to paint involving combinations of extreme heights, steeply pitched roofs, and the necessity to tie oneself to a roof jack & rappel up something.
Though I am terrified of balancing my checkbook. And hot dogs with sauerkraut scare the crap out of me.
I’m not afraid of new gadgets as such. I find the older I get the less of a daredevil I am. There are a lot of things that I did when I was younger that I look back on now and wonder how I could have been so stupid. I could have been killed several times with some of the things I did. Now I’m just mild mannered and leave all that stuff to the youngsters.
OMG. I worked with a woman who, when she bought new clothes (not often), had to let them hang in her closet for 6 months before she could wear the garment. No shit. I was speachless and awestruck when she very calmly explained this.
I love new stuff (am usually ripping the wrapping off at traffic stops on the way home)! Stuff that is a little scary is seen as a challenge (to myself) to get over, but that’s just my style.
FWIW, I once made a sourdough rock with my breadmaker
Love breadmakers. Love Gadgets. I never upgrade without full research first, tho. Computers deserve more than a quick, thoughtless upgrade. I’m using first edition win98. I only upgraded to IE 5.5 because my banks website required it for some odd reason. (They dropped this.)
I think that might be my problem. I think I was more afraid of “gee, what if I screw up this bread?” than actually using the breadmaker. I didn’t want people pointing and laughing at me (any more than they already do).
The first loaf turned out alright, BTW. It was a bit lopsided, though. Tasted just fine! Now I’m making another loaf. Wheeee! Maybe I’ve conquered this fear?
The best piece of breadmaking advice I ever got was from Peg Bracken, I think it’s in the I Hate to Cook Book. She says, “Don’t worry about how the bread will turn out, because the thing about bread is, even if it turns out awful, it’s still edible. You can always use it for bread crumbs or something.” Ever since then I’ve felt much freer to just get out the Fleischman’s yeast and the flour and make a big mess in the kitchen (no breadmaker, just fists and a counter). And sometimes it comes out kind of strange, or lopsided, or with big weird holes in it, but she’s right, it’s always edible.
I’m not afraid of new gadgets. I tend to do the man thing of fiddling with something new for ages and then finally sitting down with the instructions to figure out what other stuff it does.
I am afraid of trying new foods though. I will not try anything if I don’t like the way it smells cause that usually indicates that it will not taste good, in my experience.
There aren’t many other things I am afraid of, but as I get older, there are some things that I don’t like the idea of doing (scary rides at funfairs, for example) but then there are other things which I’m sure will scare the heck out of me and still want to do (parachute jump, for example).
Not afraid of new gadgets unless there’s a likelihood I’ll be embarrassed publicly.
I’m very willing to try new foods, though I’d much rather try a small portion of something new than order it as an entree, only to discover I really don’t like the food in question.
Oh, and though I’m adventurous enough about trying new foods, I’m with RickQ and Mnementh. If it smells bad, I almost certainly won’t try it.
