Bic Stick Pen
Almost everything listed above, and adding:
My fancy noise-quieting headphones. I love them. When they break or are stolen, I will squeeze money out of the budget to get new ones as soon as possible.
A credit card.
Car air conditioning.
Absolutely nothing. I’m fully prepared for my life to change drastically. If I had to walk away from every single thing I own right now, I could do that.
I would definitely try to actively regain some things though…toilet paper comes to mind first and foremost.
I wish there wasn’t such a need to have the necessity for a lot of things we have and learn to abuse incessantly…
But…
If we stop, we will be lost…
LOST I TELL YA…
The End is Nigh…
Hey, all of these were luxuries at one time, even if it was before my time! Seriously, though, spending a fair amount of time in 3rd world countries tends make one acutely aware of what really is necessity vs. luxury.
Computer
Air conditioner
Toilet
Better than Over The Air TV service. I’m streaming now, but have had cable and DVR in the past. I really, really, really don’t ever want to go back to just getting the major networks.
Internet and microwave. I live, mostly, on TV dinners, and I will NOT fire up the oven to cook a TV dinner. I had to use the stove top skillet to cook a hotdog yesterday. Never again.
Also, AC in the house, so I can sleep.
Plushly carpeted conference rooms in quiet hallways.
A couple days ago I gave several presentations in places I’d never been before. They were company lunchrooms with hard tile floors, and tables and chairs apparently made from the same material from which they make speaker cones, which were constantly being dragged around over the hard tiles. There were refrigerators and vending machines with loud fans, and open doorways to manufacturing areas with noisy machinery, and a PA system that just would not pipe down. Public speaking is always a bit stressful, but this was just murder.
I like your style.
While I use luxury items like tv, AC and the internet, it’s only because I’m addicted, and I would prefer to go back to a simpler age, read books again and not waste my life watching hours of stupid and pointless tv rubbish, and posting on internet forums. However, media is like heroin, best not started at all, as extremely difficult to give up, particularly when living with another tv addict.
iPad
Secluded home with acreage at the end of a long private road with no neighbors nearby.
Unless you just forgot to add “flush” to toilet, I disagree. Before effective sewage disposal systems came in, millions of people died of easily avoidable disease. Therefore, essential in society, not a luxury.
Actually, hot dogs taste best when they’re boiled. Not nuked, not grilled, boiled. I don’t know why. Just toss the hot dogs into a pot of water, let it come to a boil, and boil for however many minutes the packages says.
Or cut up the hot dogs into a can of pork’n’beans. That works well for non-cooks too.
Warm water to shower/bathe with. I have done my best to give it up but I can’t, it just makes me feel sick and ruins a lot of the day going cold.
Half of these things I agree, wholeheartedly. Half I don’t have, so I guess I don’t miss them. I’ll add my deep freeze (never enough room in the fridge/freezer combo for me) and trash removal service. I live out where burning household trash is common and accepted, but after either waiting for a calm day with stinky trash piling up, or having escaped fires to fight with frozen hoses… Yeah, I’ll pay to have a truck come once a week.
I’ll add, city water and sewage. I despise wells and septic systems, a house that had them would have to be pretty effing special for me to buy it.
I dunno that I’d call internet access a luxury anymore - it’s more like having a utility now, I’d think, like having a phone or electricity once was. Started out as a luxury but has hit the saturation point where people are surprised if you don’t have it. I mean, c’mon - it’s free in McDonalds, Starbucks and a host of businesses. I drove thru Iowa once and the rest stops had free wi-fi.
The dry cleaners.
I just took a job in an office which requires me to wear button-down dress shirts every day. It is so convenient to just toss them in a laundry bag, deliver it to the cleaners every two weeks, and get back clean, pressed, and starched shirts ready for wear.
Even if I dedicated myself to hand washing my shirts and then ironing them (which would probably account for a good chunk of my weekend), I doubt I could get results as good as the professionals.