Damn machines

I was in the post-office picking up my hate mail (one from my mom), when I happened to pass by an average young man depositing quarters into a stamp machine. One of the quarters fell all the way through for no apparent reason and the man let out a hissing, exasperated moan and if I hadn't been right there I'm fairly certain he would have whipped out his manhood and peed on the contraption. By the way, I don't typically use the word "manhood" in any context, but Happy Stan says his kids have been reading my blog for tips on how to avoid a miserable adulthood, so I'm occasionally censoring my lingo.

Where was I? Oh yes, the post-office. I was right there with that poor guy, remembering the many times I've deposited change into the snack machine at work, my mouth watering, my eyes growing large at the site of the peanut butter cups just behind the plastic. And I remembered the many times the machine wouldn't take my quarters (and the one time I slammed my fist against the plastic sheild and swore revenge). I remembered all the times my computer crashed just as I was about to send a brilliant email to my girlfriend explaining why I was right and she was wrong about everything we'd ever discussed, including my tendency to ignore what she was saying after several sentences. I remembered the times my computer had a small glitch and all I had to do to fix it was to clean up a few things, but cleaning up a few things caused 7 new problems to arise, and then when I tried to clean up those 7 things, 49 new problems arose until finally I tossed my computer in front of a Sprite truck that happened to be speeding by the dumpster where I sleep. I remembered the time my Grandpa Schlomo got parking tickets for parking in a space when the parking meter was broken. Does that really make sense?

What's going on here besides my own slippery descent into madness? It's machines. Computers. Automated answering services. Televisions. Blackberrys. Cell phones. Parking Meters. They're everywhere and they're making life even less personal than it already is. We're turning into anti-social, isolated creatures, on par with sharks and TV talk show hosts. Whenever I'm at the airport, I always try to get into the line that will allow me to talk to a human being, even though checking in electronically might be a tad faster and less likely to lead to a conversation that would include the word "carry-on." I do this because I work with computers and I know computers fuck up all the time. And they're inflexible. You can't push an incorrect button on a machine and expect it to say, "hey, that's okay, you're just a squishy, idiotic human being, like me, I'll just switch your seat so you get to sit next to that hot tomato after all!" I like to be able to say to a human being, "I'd like the burger medium rare, but hold the fries and can I get a salad?" Even the least intelligent human being understands nuance. Machines understand 1 and 0.

Here's a quote from a New York Times article that I read on line: "A study by sociologists at Duke and the University of Arizona that gained wide attention this summer found that too much computer use can isolate one further from a shrinking circle of confidants." No, really? Cleary, those who funded this study either don't get out much or they're wild surfer dudes wondering why fewer and fewer folks are hitting the shore every week to catch a few tasty waves.

So when I slam my hand against the plastic casing of the snack machine, I'm really expressing the frustration of all humanity. I'm desperate for human interaction, for someone to say, "sorry sir, here's your peanutbutter cups, now why don't you go sit down in the kitchen and think happy thoughts about streams and squirrels."

All of this is our own fault. We thought machines were making our lives easier, but instead we're turning existence into one isolated, numbing experience after another. There are too many so-called humans, now, that are more automated than any machine you'll ever meet. That's not life. That's more like war, just with slower deaths. Which reminds me: a friend of mine produced a TV show (speaking of isolating electronic devices) recently about ways the world might end. One of them was: "machines take over." Maybe that's already happened...