Hell Is Other People’s Smart-Aleck Phones

Most of the time, I like other people. I enjoy pictures of other people’s dogs and cats and babies and grandchildren and vacations. I’ve always enjoyed personal peeks into other people’s lives.

When I was a kid, my family made two treks a year to a Christmas tree farm run by country friends, the first time to choose and claim our tree, the second time to cut it and bring it home – but not until after we spent a good portion of the day enjoying hot cocoa and holiday cookies and a slide show (or was it home movies?) of the friends’ summer vacation. I loved those images of the other family's life, and we made that second trek knowing and anticipating the entertainment that would be part of the day’s agenda. We were not kidnapped by it.

A couple friends and I used to get together in spring and fall to hike trails, have lunch, and catch up on one another’s lives. The catching-up often involved small photo albums. That was fun, too.

In an earlier era, not all that long ago, two people might meet and pull snapshots out of their billfolds to show one another. Fair enough. Nice! Cute kid! Or dog or cat or whatever.

But now, omigod, the ubiquitous so-called “smart” phones are in everyone’s hands – or on the restaurant table right beside the soup spoon – and there is no way to hold the attention of friend or stranger or family member when a phone demands to be given priority. “Just a minute. I have to take this.” Laughter. “Listen to this!” A text message is read aloud to you, from someone you have never met and very likely will never meet. The recipient finds it hilarious. You, not so much. Recipient must respond. You wait.

If the person you have met for this long-awaited lunch had only brought a handful of photographs, you might browse through the pictures while being put on live call-waiting, but no! Because the pictures, too, are now on the phone! And they are not arranged for easy access (they could be, but do you know a single person who has taken the trouble?), and you cannot take them in your own hands, but -- when at last your friend is at liberty to attend to your presence once more -- you must sit or stand patiently during a seemingly endless session of swipe, swipe, swipe – “No, that’s not it” – swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.

I love my friends! I love my family! I’m often interested in strangers I meet! But am I the only one who often feels like a hapless hostage to other people’s phones? I’m here! Look at me! Talk to me!

The Almost-Invisible Continuing Disappearance of Jobs

This morning I paid my November retail sales tax to the State of Michigan. Here are some of the offices and workers who help me with that transaction:

1)  My local branch bank: I don’t bank online because (a) I enjoy face-to-face interactions and (b) every online site is “secure” only until someone figures out how to hack into it. It’s fine. Since our once-local bank was bought out by a larger national system, many annoying features have crept into my banking life, but I still like my local tellers, and I want them to keep their jobs.

2)  Friends of the Library: Small part but important. I make a copy of every form and check I send to the DOT.

3)  Post office: This is my third face-to-face interaction. Some people hate going to the post office, but I’ve always loved it. And in 21 years of bookselling, not a single book I’ve shipped USPS has ever gone astray. Every civilized country has a national postal service. I don’t want my country to give up being civilized.

4)  State workers in Detroit and Lansing: These people live and work miles from me, but they’re doing their jobs, just like the people here in my little village.

5)  Check printers: Again, people I don’t know and never see but whose work I appreciate.

Recently those of us who do retail business in Michigan received a form letter from the state, telling us that beginning in 2015 all sales tax payments must be made online, electronically. Presumably, what that means is that I will go to an online account, tell a program how much I owe, and the MDOT will reach an electronic arm into my bank account and take its money directly. I will no longer be trusted to send my monthly check in a timely manner. There will be no printed check. The post office will not be involved, nor will anyone at my local branch bank.

I will be losing an important measure of control over my finances, and how many people will be losing their jobs? Why? Because state government and the federal postal system are “bloated”?

What some people call “bloat,” I call jobs.

What some people call progress, I call intrusion into my business and negation of my autonomy.

Who is winning here? I know I'm not.

Be Careful What You Sign Up For

When my son was still very young, imagining convivial meetings where persons of similar interests would gather to listen to and discuss their favorite music, he signed up for a certain “record club,” which shall not herein be further identified. What a rude disappointment when he discovered that the only activities of the club were to be his receiving and paying for the monthly selection! “The club isn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be,” he observed sadly.

Years later my husband reached the age when he was eligible to join a very large, well-known and powerful association promising many discounts to its members. The unwelcome consequence was a flood of junk mail stuffing the post office box day after day.

Not long ago someone suggested that I join a certain online organization because I would find the discussions interesting. Well, unhappily for me, this group does not conduct conversation on a website but via e-mail, and the majority of these e-mails seem to be conducted in “reply all” mode, with all previous correspondence on the subject still attached. Help! I’m drowning! I need to unsubscribe asap—if only I can figure out how!

There are times when un-joining a club is much more exciting than joining. The thing is, relinquishing membership usually takes a lot longer. Sigh!