Quite possibly, this GE clock radio maybe among the five oldest things I own (not including photographs). I know it’s not the oldest thing I own but it’s damn near it anyway and the only one I still interact with everyday.

I’ve had the thing since 1983 and it still works like the day I bought it or acquired it or stole it back in the day when I was still called “a kid.”

I remember when my kids were little, they liked to play with it, and that meant dropping it on the floor and pretending it was a factory being hit by a Lego hailstorm.

In spite of their abuse, its sturdy brown plastic housing that’s as firmly attached as a carapace has held up, its cord is supple and undamaged, and its red numerical glow never burned out or faded away. The GE clock still keeps the time and wakes me up with modern country or indie rock instead of Boy George or Cyndi Lauper or Asia.

For 33 years, it has kept up with the changing musical landscape that filters through its tiny but powerful speakers, its tinny sound wafting through my eardrum and finally lodging itself into the long-term memory sector of my brain which transforms the sound into long-forgotten recollections and emotions.

I bet that clock will still be waking me and making me remember until I’m dead and can’t hear it anymore.

Things just aren’t made to last anymore. In 1983, of course, we all said the same thing.