I’d like to congratulate Mel Brooks on making it to the age of 100, but I’m not sure I want to duplicate his achievement.
I try not to focus on aging, not that there’s anything wrong with getting older. But sometimes I feel exhausted by the daily trials of modern living, and I’m not sure I can manage 27 more years of it.
I’m writing this having just gotten off the phone with a tech assistant who was trying to help me get into my expense reporting system, and things did not go well. You need to get a code from your authenticator to access what might be the most poorly conceived expense reporting system ever created, but after 48 minutes of trying, the tech couldn’t figure out the glitch.
He said he would get back to me, but he’s very busy, and “it might be tomorrow morning.”
Fingers crossed.
Generally speaking, I’m not a grouchy old man stuck in the past. I don’t think I am, anyway. I’m out in the world, even if I’ve retired from standing in line for a cup of coffee, and I can download a photograph onto my wristwatch.
But increasingly, I find myself getting bugged by a lot of things, no matter how trivial they are in the grand scheme. On some days, I’d like the option of putting a quarter in a meter rather than having to download a sixth parking app. And I wish everyone would stop using the word “perfect.”
I’ll check in at a restaurant, for instance, and a receptionist will ask my name. I respond, and the receptionist says, “Perfect.”
Really?
What time was the reservation for, the receptionist might ask.
6:30.
“Perfect.”
Imagine my luck. I showed up with the right name at precisely the right time. Do I get a free cocktail?
The word “perfect” is inappropriately uttered roughly as often as the phrase “no problem.” I don’t recall a ballot measure in which we voted to replace “you’re welcome” with “no problem,” but it’s happening, folks, and here’s how it works:
Me: Happy birthday, Mel.
Mel: Thank you.
Me: No problem.
There is often no eye contact during these casual exchanges. I think roughly half the population is unaware that other people exist, and I’m hoping all of them are replaced by AI.
I have a 3-year-old beagle, and every once in a while he scoots around on his butt. This is not a trick we taught him. It’s a sign of discomfort that requires medical attention.
I took him to get some help and checked him in at the front desk.
What’s his name, asked the receptionist.
Philly.
“Perfect.”
We kind of like it. Frankly, I had wanted to name him Willie, but I was outvoted.
And what is Philly here for today?
He’s having his anal glands expressed.
“Perfect,” says the receptionist, who could also have used “no problem.”
Either way, Philly doesn’t think so. He doesn’t speak, but I can read his eyes.
For several weeks, I had an itchy bump on the back of my scalp. My wife saw me scratching it and asked what was going on, so I gave her the lowdown
“You’re an idiot,” she said, explaining that an intelligent person would go see a dermatologist.
But you know how that goes. You fill out 12 or 18 forms online, giving them your life history, then get to your appointment and they ask if your address and insurance have changed in the 10 minutes since you sent them the forms. Then you fill out all the forms again.
The biopsy revealed an issue. When I went back, the receptionist asked what I was there for.
“Squamous cell carcinoma surgery,” I said.
“Perfect,” said the receptionist.
Hmmmmmm. Sure, all things considered, I’d rather have a small bump sliced off my scalp than have my anal glands expressed. But still, the word “perfect” doesn’t pop into my head.
Lately, our TV has been on the fritz, and there’s nothing perfect about that. The problem began when we unbundled, canceling our landline, which was like pulling the last thread that kept our lives from unraveling.
All of a sudden you’re sorting through a snake’s nest of dusty cables and cords, trying to tell a receiver from a hard drive. Maybe you can fix the whole mess by pressing the right buttons on your remote, but with four to choose from, that’s a game of roulette you’re sure to lose.
And it’s anyone’s guess as to whether you should call the phone company or the cable company. This is why you should keep the name of a real estate agent handy, so you can just sell the house and let someone else figure out the TV problem.
If you’re like me, you find yourself digging for passwords you can’t remember to accounts you don’t know the name of. It used to be said that infidelity and money woes were the main causes of broken marriages. I’d bet cash that the new top reasons for divorce are forgotten passwords and not showing enough sympathy when your spouse is on hold for 83 minutes and counting.
My wife does the bulk of the troubleshooting on these problems, bless her. I think I’ll make a dinner reservation.
But I did make one call to the cable company after my TV screen flashed a phone number and an extension, so I could fix my stalled hard drive and restore my 53 episodes of “The Rockford Files.”
I dialed, and the extension didn’t work. Nobody there.
I think the number on my screen was actually an error code rather than an extension, but we would need a congressional investigation. After my knees were nearly buckled by a series of shooting pains behind my eyeballs, I dialed again and got a friendly voice that said:
“I’m Eva, your AI agent. How can I help you today?”
This is not sustainable, in my opinion. Somewhere, a driverless car is going to run into a data center, and the world is going to explode.
Yes, of course there have been thousands of technological advances in my lifetime, and my smart phone is full of helpful apps. But a lot of simple tasks have gotten more complicated, and from where I sit, people are more wired but less connected, and definitely more frazzled.
Happy birthday, Mel Brooks.
I don’t know how much longer I’ve got, but I’m thinking of going off the grid.
It’s going to be perfect.
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