I have everything here except for the King sized bed. Man do I feel gypped and incomplete! :mad: Damn my inferior Queen sized mattress, is there no justice in the world? :mad:
But I do have it in a Sleigh bed frame, does that make up for it? 
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I’m with the OP. Things that I used to shrug at, i absolutely need now. Smart phone, A/C (car, home, work), non-twin bed, wifi/internet…
Smartphone really sums it up though. A camera to take pictures whenever, wherever I want? Music whenever/wherever I want? The internet whenever/wherever I want? Stored information (addresses, to do lists, phone numbers, birthdays, calendars, shopping lists, notes) whenever/wherever I want? GPS (I was totally a got-the-route-memorized guy before). It seems so trivial but I’ve grown hopelessly attached.
On that list, I have a king-size bed. Not a necessity, but it is nice. I would likely replace it with something smaller if something happened to it, though; it takes up almost the whole room.
In regards to central AC, it’s worth noting that where you live really makes a difference there. It’s not just a matter of geography–though that does matter, obviously–but architecture. A building that was designed to be centrally air conditioned is much, much harder to live in without AC than a building that was designed with no AC. A house with lots of windows (with screens) and doors (with screens) and high ceilings and trees is vastly more livable than a hermetically sealed box designed with no thought to ventilation. I could live without central air, even here in North Texas. But I couldn’t live in my house without central air.
Just rub it in my face why don’t you! You people and your flaunting of your superior bedding make me sick. :mad:
Want to trade?
I must have air conditioning and I’d really miss the internet. The cell phone is starting to feel like seatbelts in the car. I feel vulnerable without it but could get use to not having it.
Health issues make it difficult for me to deal with hot weather, so the air conditioning is fairly important to me. I can sort of make due with ambient water in the hot tub and a battery operated fan when the power tanks if the generator is not running. A window AC would keep me reasonably happy, as long as I could cool the room I spend most of my time in, I can subjectively dash through the heat to use a bathroom.
Most of my non-family human interaction is online or at some sort of distance, so I need my smart phone with or without the high speed internet and a computer, and a tablet for light surfing or netflix and music.
I love the power locks and power windows, and to a lesser extent the power seats on vehicles, as I have mobility issues. I can’t just dive across the momvan to unlock a door.
I need something larger than a twin or double to share with my husband, with the body issues I tend to need to nest up with pillows to hold me in a comfortable position, but we have a queen though I would love a king since we added another cat. How can such a small animal take up so much bed real estate?!
I can take or leave the water and ice through the door, we made ice the old fashioned way and kept a pitcher of water in the fridge up until about 5 years ago, it wouldn’t kill me to go back. It is a convenience, nothing more.
Don’t have satellite radio and don’t intend on getting it.
I am my own luggage with wheels, I strap a cargo back pack onto my wheelchair and roll onwards.
We have a chemex, a french press and a Mr Coffee. I don’t need a Keurig coffee maker.
And I don’t have bluetooth in the car, I use a wired headset if I absolutely need to talk on the phone and I can’t pull off to converse.
Medical care is a luxury that I would care not to do without. Actually, I wouldn’t be alive without medical technology. Thanks to mrAru spending 20 years in the military [and believe me, he could have made a lot more money out of the military. If you total up the hours spend ‘at work’ for 24 and 36 hours, and port/starboard [12 hours on, 12 hours off] and spending anywhere from 3 days to 6 months deployed he made much less than minimum wage per hour spent working.] I actually have access to medical care that most other people don’t have. If nothing else, I can always show up at a military base medical facility and get seen even if I am flat broke, and have the medications provided to me free at the base dispensary. And when otherwise my monthly medications would cost $3000 per month before copay [and $180 copay if I opt to have them mailed to me] we would not be able to keep me alive as there are few people who can afford to pay out 3k a month for meds.
I only have two things on the OP’s list (Cable TV and wheeled luggage), and I don’t consider either of them to be a necessity.
Things I would consider to be a necessity and replace immediately:
- Internet access and an Internet-capable device (I currently have a laptop, used for Internet only, which I might replace with some other type of Internet device).
- I would also replace my refrigerator immediately.
I think that’s about it. I would probably replace my Kindle immediately, because I enjoy it, but it’s hardly a necessity. I’d just go back to old-fashioned paper books.
I have never owned a car.
I will not.
Unless someone is offering to scratch my back!
My list:
Cell phone
Computer
Don’t forget your ivory buttscratcher.
Impressive. You should run for mayor on those principles.
Agreed. I for one could not live without my:
-Rolls Royces
-Faberge eggs
-14 gold toilets
-open invitation to stay at Kenye Wests’ house
-2 tonnes of bubble wrap
-and Netflix
For the longest time I didn’t care about Netflix and thought it useless. Then a couple of months ago I bought a new tv (my 43rd one) and it came with a Netflix app. on it so I tried the free first month trial and now I’m addicted to it.
I’m watching a bunch of old tv shows and movies and shows that originally aired on HBO or Showtime. I started watching Breaking Bad a couple of weeks ago and I’m recording the new episodes as they air which I’ll watch once I catch up.
I wouldn’t really miss my TV if I had my laptop, or even, at a pinch, my iPhone, plus wifi. I can watch all the channels live through my phone or laptop, plus loads of on-demand stuff.
Most of the gadgets on the OP’s list I either don’t have (iPad, coffee maker, ice maker, bluetooth, satellite radio, air conditioning, keyless ignition) or wouldn’t especially miss (power windows, say).
Things I’d replace straight away? Dishwasher. That’s essential. Washing machine - essential but not quite so pressing as there is a launderette 5 minutes away.
As I don’t believe anyone mentioned it, I’d replace my flatscreen TV if it were lost, although it’s “only” a 46" set and I’d probably get a bigger one next time. I can’t imagine returning to a standard definition television.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but most of my TV viewing these days seems to be either on a phone screen while I’m commuting, or through the laptop (watching BBC iPlayer catch-up). Sometimes if I can be bothered I’ll plug the laptop into the TV HDMI port. I’m thinking of getting a dongle so I can watch iPlayer etc straight through the TV but I don’t know if it’s really worth the £40 or so.
At first I thought you meant that you have two ivory backscratchers. I wish I had two, those two ivory backscratcher households on our block totally turn their noses up at us one ivory backscratchers.
I think of all the things mentioned in this thread, the ones I’d miss the most and are most necessary for my survival financially are PC, internet, and smartphone in that order. The rest haven’t quite made it to “necessity” for me, “necessity” being defined very liberally as something I’d fix or replace ASAP.
I agree; the internet and a way to access it are essential items today. Yesterday I would buy a paper, go to the bank, go to the library (for the reference section), buy a fiction book, buy a CD, use a radio, use the tv, go to the travel agent, rent a movie and go to the cinema (probably left something else off of that list).
Today I turn on my laptop and EVERYTHING I just mentioned I can do at my desk. Amazing but necessary. Once online grocery shopping and working from home become the norm a full-size car will probably also become a luxury that many (without kids) will choose not to own.
I have to have internet access. Other than that, my soon to be Ventra card and my 800 count Egyptian cotton sheets for my full sized bed, I can’t think of anything once considered a luxury that is now a necessity.
Of course when you’re plugging the laptop into the HDMI port, you’re doing something that was not possible or not easily done with standard definition TVs. It’s another reason why flatscreen HDTVs are no longer a luxury.
For me, my Kindle and my tablet have become essential, even though I wondered before getting them whether they’d be useful. I would replace each of them instantly, were they to break. I also need a wifi internet connection. My laptop is useful, maybe even essential, particularly for work.
Other than that, there’s not so much that I couldn’t do without. A washing machine is helpful (especially here, since we don’t now live near a laundrette), and I’m glad we have a microwave, but we’ve lived without one before without any trouble. I’d like a dishwasher, I hate washing-up! And I’d love air-conditioning, but we (more or less) make do with fans.
I have all 12 (13 if you want to include the backscratcher, though mine are not ivory), and I could easily do without at least half of them.
Don’t take away my A/C nor my king-sized bed, though.
mmm