Delete

Labor Day may not be the most appropriate time to praise labor saving devices but pressing delete buttons is such a satisfying experience. You can clean up a messy inbox with a few clicks. If hitting “delete” is too scary, at least you can sort emails into storage with a “move to” click that dispatches missives to files for underwear ads, DIY election fraud, or whatever. Personally I want electronics to take over even more personal interactions. Colportage by colporteurs should finally be entirely eliminated by making email the only recognized means of distributing religious materials. Sort, delete, or forward. The “Delete All” feature is an especially efficient way to empty a folder. My wife uses it all the time on my underwear file, forcing me to rename it “Gift Ideas for Mollie” and sprinkle some toaster oven ads and oil change coupons among the lingerie. So much can be accomplished without leaving my chair. I may not even notice the next pandemic. I hope inevitable advances to the delete button will include options to erase people, places, and things from my computer and television. And technology needs to make it easier to recover the files my wife deletes.