SHORTER NANCY FRENCH: Ladies, don't complain when men expect you to wait on them hand and foot. They deserve it because they invented appliances.

UPDATE. Some of my delightful commenters point out that French is merely putting a gender-based spin on Megan McArdle's idea that we shouldn't worry about declining incomes because we all have iPods, which did not exist in the '70s. Of course McArdle came up with that before Obama became president, so who knows what she thinks now.