“Oh no!” my wife said. “The CD player on my boom box is broken. What am I going to do?”

If there was ever a more dated thing to say, it was this. Why not just mention the 8-track player in your 1978 Gremlin was acting up again? Or the VHF stations weren’t coming in clear on your rabbit-ear Magnavox?

You do know what a boom box is, don’t you? A box that brings the boom. It wasn’t that long ago we actually used these. It was a big black or silver box with a CD player or terrestrial radio that would pump out music through two bass-heavy speakers the size of tractor tires.

Total weight: Kansas!

Cheaply made in recent years, they’re only built to last about as long as you can hold your breath. But when you need one, you need one. Like my wife, a pre-school teacher gearing up for the start of the school year. A fair amount of what she does revolves around simpler technology like pencils and tape and songs about dancing hamsters learning the alphabet.