Things that I want in a vague sort of way but will almost certainly never purchase:

(Ok, let me clarify: This list only covers things that I could conceivably purchase. Sure, I’d love my fleet of warbirds [a P-51, an FW-190, and an F-86 would be a good start], but I’m not likely to acquire millions of dollars anytime soon. Anyway, I’d probably want my own space elevator, first.)

• A shortwave radio. The idea of listening to broadcasts from around the world sounds good. I’d love to listen to a broadcast from a numbers station. After the initial thrill, though, I don’t see such a radio getting much use. A crippling lack of foreign language fluency would probably limit the amount of enjoyment I’d get from it.

• The OED. Now, this I would use. But it’s pretty damned expensive. $300 for the CD version is more reasonable than the printed version, true, but while it’s worth something to me to be able to look up authoritative work derivations, and just to be able to say that I own the darned thing, I can’t quite say that those things would be worth $300 to me.

• A GPS…er…thing. Mappy thing? Yeah, one of those. Truth be told, this is not something that I covet. I just think that given my miserable sense of direction, it’s probably something that would come in handy. Although I’d need one that told me more than merely “You are here.” Honestly, what good is knowing that you’re “here,” when “here” is “middle of nowhere”? Which probably demonstrates that I have no idea of how the things work. They’ve got to have the ability to show you a larger map, right? Because latitude and longitude are very nice numbers, but pretty meaningless in almost all places that aren’t the middle of the ocean. Because, hey, if you’re in the middle of the ocean, how much use would the ability to change the scale of the map be?

• One of them mp3 player things. The temptation to wait for something cheaper and better is stronger than my need to carry around every song that I own. Sure, 40GB would be enough to store all of my CDs, but why limit myself now? Given a year, 60 or 80 GB models will be the same price or less, and then I could use it for the rest of my life. Or something. At the very least, they’ll be smaller and less clunky, right? And no, I don’t want an iPod. Why pay more for something with less storage space just because it looks like a kitchen appliance from the future? Bah, I say. However, the continued popularity of the iPod makes me worry that the other players, despite greater storage capacity, must really suck.

• How odd. I’m drawing a blank.

You’d think this would be easy. It’s not, you see, because of the “almost certainly never purchase” caveat. Sure, it’s not highly likely that I’m going to buy myself that $12,000 telescope, but I want to reserve the option. Plus, I don’t want a big, expensive ‘scope in a vague way. No, I covet it. Oh! Wait!

• A cordless drill. Pakeha has one of these, and it’s pretty darned useful. I have a boring old corded drill that works just fine, and that means that spending the money for a new model just isn’t quite tempting enough. Sure, if the corded drill burned out on me, I’d be buying a cordless model. But in all likelihood it’s going to last for many years, and, to be perfectly honest, I just can’t get too upset about that.

Columns by Harlock