#1045 Writing on the Wall

I recently received a circular in the mail, which featured the latest must-haves for interior décor. One of the offerings was a set of three giant circular disks that you stick to your wall.
They are a rather intrusive shade of florescent pink, sure to clash with any other décor color on the planet. The purpose of these disks is for your youngster to write on. To jot down “notes-to-self”, doodles, or whatever their little minds desire.
They use the new “dry-erase” technology, so they can be wiped off again and again as your flibbertigibbet youngsters go through their endless enthusiasm swings.
They are called Wall Pops.
The picture in the ad shows a teenage girl scrawling a “don’t forget list” on one disk. The other disks on her wall feature a “paper due on the 2nd” reminder and a drawing of a happy face with hair.
Cute.
Interestingly, the picture also shows the girl’s desk, on which is an open brand-new laptop. One would think a young person like that would be so versed in the technology of her laptop that she would be able to program in an automatic alert to tell her when her paper is due, so she might avoid scrawling the reminder on a large pink disk on her wall.
But no, the Wall Pops are a retreat to an earlier technology—the technology of jotting down a note. In this case with a system that is functionally not unlike a, um, chalkboard. Chalkboards were the original “dry erase” system. Used by countless generations of boring lecturers and geniuses in physics.
Wall Pops, though they sound like a very large sucker, are really an acknowledgement that sometimes we really do just want to jot something down. And that large temporary and physical reminders are better than a gigabyte of electronic memory.
Plus, if you use the Wall Pops in your toddler’s room, they could be cute early training in the fine art of graffiti.
Better yet, when your child actually forgets one of her reminders, you can ask her pointedly why she couldn’t see the writing on the wall.
America, ya gotta love it.