Do you ever feel like you can’t keep up with technology?

In praise of the simple things we got right the first time 

Apps and controllers, adapters and SD cards, usernames and passwords, verification codes and security questions. Unless you are 14 years old, I’m not sure there is any way to keep track of all of it.

I hate being that guy with a little gray in his hair yelling, “May I please speak to a human?” into the support line for my bank, hoping the computer will finally give up and connect me to one.

And don’t even get me started on appliances that are smarter than I am.

All of this got me thinking about the other end of the technological spectrum: the simple things we figured out a long time ago and, thankfully, have mostly left alone.

Take fingernail clippers. People have certainly tried to improve them. You can buy fancy ergonomic clippers with special grips, catchers and all sorts of other features. But somehow the $14 version doesn’t seem to clip a fingernail any better than the $1.69 version that looks pretty much like the one that sat in my parents’ medicine cabinet when I was a kid.

Some things just work.

So I started making a list of everyday objects that have remained essentially unchanged during my lifetime. Here are a few of my favorites:

Fiskars scissors: The orange-handled scissors have been around longer than I have. Put something between the two blades and squeeze.

Bic pens: Pull off the cap. Write until it quits. Lose it. Find another one in a junk drawer. Repeat.

Paper clips: A beautifully simple piece of bent wire. No batteries, no instructions and, most importantly, no paper-clip subscription service.

Matches: Strike one against the box and you get fire. Considering how long humanity worked on the fire problem, this seems like a pretty good stopping point.

Peanut butter on a mousetrap: Put a little peanut butter on an old-fashioned spring trap and let 19th-century technology handle the rest.

No. 2 pencils: Wood, graphite, a little metal and an eraser. The original word processor even comes with an undo function.

ChapStick: Twist it up and rub it on your lips. It works, it’s cheap and nobody has yet convinced us that ChapStick 2.0 needs artificial intelligence.

The more I thought about it, the longer the list got: disposable razors, zippers, cast-iron skillets, Swiss Army knives, Sharpies, Velcro, Mason jars, tape measures, light switches and that wooden ruler that has been sitting in the junk drawer for 30 years.

Maybe that is what I like about all of these things. They represent a rare category of human achievement: things we simply got right.

We are constantly told that everything needs to be smarter, faster, connected and improved. Sometimes it does. I’m certainly not volunteering to trade my iPhone for a rotary telephone.

But not everything needs an upgrade.

There is something reassuring about reaching into the junk drawer and finding that old wooden ruler. It doesn’t need charging. It doesn’t need updating. It doesn’t care whether I remember my password.

It is still 12 inches long.

You pick it up, measure something and put it back.

No notification appears. No software agreement pops up. Nothing flashes “ERROR.”

It just works.

And after a day spent trying to convince a dryer that I am qualified to operate it, that feels like a pretty good definition of progress.