Do I know you? No? Great....let's keep it that way.

Have you noticed how UN-social we've become?  People are withdrawing, to one degree or another, from social interaction.  It's been a creeping thing for years, but now it seems to me it's becoming a stampede.  The most obvious example of this....

Texting

Given a choice, people....young people in particular, would prefer to not talk to other humans, ever.  Instead of going to see our neighbor two houses down the street, or calling them, we text them.  People go out for dinner, and then spend half their time texting, sometimes to the person sitting right across the table from them!

Shopping

It's estimated that 20% of American shopping malls will close within 5 years.  People are just not going out shopping like they used to.  Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Circuit City, and Blockbuster, among many others, are long gone.  Sears and Kmart are dead men walking, JC Penny isn't far behind, and even big chains like Macy's are closing stores as fast as they can.  Yet online retailers are THRIVING!  (OK....guilty.  Just this week I placed online orders with Amazon, LL Bean, and REI.)

You can even buy a car online without ever speaking to a live homo sapien!  That is, those who still want to drive can.  I recently read that the average young person doesn't even bother getting their driver's license until they're 19 years old.  In my day (as we old farts used to say) we were at the DMV at 6 am on our 16th birthday to be first in line to get our license.  Auto makers are seeing a trend of "car sharing", where a number of people will buy a car together, then take their turn driving it on the increasingly rare times they have to venture out of their house/apartment.

It wasn't long ago that if you wanted a meal of a slightly higher caliber than a drive-thru joint, you had to go INSIDE, be seated by a human, tell a human what you wanted, and pay a human on your way out.  

Today we have home delivery via Grub Hub and Uber Eats.  Just place your order and pay online, in half an hour open your door up just wide enough for someone to slip your food to you, then slam the door and lock it again.  No eye contact necessary.  *sweet!*

Many local grocery stores are now making home deliveries, and they all allow you to order everything from beans to toilet paper online, then just pull up curbside where they will hand you your assembled order.  (Coming to a complete stop is appreciated.)

If you're feeling puny, you can call any number of online doctors who will examine you long distance (?) and in many cases send you a prescription from a mail-order pharmacy.  (Just hold your camera phone up to your open mouth and say 'ahh'.)  Why go out to see a doctor or to a hospital (oh, many hospitals are closing, too) when you can sit at home and get fixed?

Will dermatology eventually become an extinct medical specialty?   Today dermatologists are in their heyday, treating all of us who regularly went outside when we were younger and now have skin cancer.  Soon we won't go outside enough to absorb any of those evil rays that give us problems 30 years down the road.  *note to self:  sell all suntan lotion stock*

Are we just getting lazier, or just more scared to interact with others?  Gee thanks Gates, Jobs, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.  *sigh*

S

I'd like to shoot the nerd that invented 'texting'

Once again I must aire my oddball opinion and say I do NOT get the allure of texting.  Isn't texting just an updated version of the telegraph?  Didn't Alexander Graham Bell make the telegraph obsolete a century ago?  Why are we moving backwards?

If you disagree, tell me:  Can you text as fast as you can talk?  If you can you have freak thumbs!  Are we as a society so....so intimidated by the human voice that we'll go out of our way and take 3 times as long to convey a thought via texting vs. the telephone?  

Yesterday I asked my brother if he had heard back from ______?  We needed an answer pronto. 

He said, "If I don't hear from him soon I'll text him."

Oh bull crap!  I made one phone call, asked one question, got one answer, in one minute.  Sheesh!  It ain't rocket surgery, people!

If we don't use our muscles they'll atrophy.  If we don't use our voices will our species soon be able to do nothing more than grunt and squeal?

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My daughter Andrea had a beautiful baby girl a couple of weeks ago.  She sends out a daily photo text to all her friends and family showing us Reese's progress.  Cool.  Except about 10 seconds after she sends it my phone starts going ding...ding...ding...ding...  Everyone she sent the photo to starts replying, "Oh, she's so cute" and "She's getting SO big", etc.  

Now I'm paying for 20 incoming texts, and I don't even know most of these people.  (And don't even think it....the last thing I want is 'unlimited' texting.)  I finally asked her to send me my daily photo privately.  There may be a setting where I can opt out of seeing all the replies, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

Hey, there's a thought....I wonder if I can opt out of text messages altogether?  Then, if someone wants to talk to me, they'll have to TALK to me.  That will save us both time.

S

It's official. The winner is.....

....actually it's a tie.  It seems the good folks, all 10 of them, in Dixville Notch, NH have split their votes 5 (Obama) to 5 (Romney).  Dixville Notch is famous for opening its polling place at midnight, becoming the first to report election results to the world.  What they need is one more person to move there, and assuming he's an eligible voter, insuring there will never be a tie again.  Until one of the others dies. *sigh...why is this always so complicated?*

Here's what I'm proposing to end the stalemate:  I'll offer myself up as President.  Actually "Dictator" might be more appropriate.

My agenda: 

First, I'd banish all professional politicians to France.  That would mean no more Congress.  Those 9% of you who still like Congress....get over it!  They're now France's problem.

Next I'd go to "Wall Street" (the term to include all the ivory-tower crooked financial types), round 'em all up, and banish them to France.

Telemarketers and those who load up my mailbox with junk mail will be banished to France.  (This means YOU credit card companies!)

Anyone who's mean to dogs....let's make that just mean people in general....will be banished to France.

Chefs who insist on putting "colorful vegetables" on the same plate with my steak....will be banished to France.

Football would become a year-round sport, playing in two shifts.  Each plays for six months, then takes six months off for knee surgeries and rehab while the other shift keeps us me entertained.  Anyone who objects will be banished to France.

Anyone driving an electric car will not have to pay taxes.  Not because I like electric cars, but because they're saving lots of gasoline....FOR ME!  They'll be allowed to vacation in France, but they won't have to.

Anyone not in construction or agriculture who owns a pickup truck will be banished to France.  Minivan owners are on thin ice, too.

And people who are in front of me at a traffic light, yapping and texting and not paying attention, who wake up just as the light turns yellow again, making me miss MY turn to go.....will be banished to France.

I think I'm gonna like this Dictator thing.

Feel free to petition me with those you'd like to see banished to France, too.  After all, I'm here to serve.  :)

S

Dog heaven

If there's such a thing as dog heaven it probably looks something like this:

I caught K's dog Luke resting with his head on the low window stool surrounded by his favorite toys.  It almost looks staged, but I swear it wasn't.  The funniest thing happened about 3 seconds after I took this photo....a bird flew right up to the window, right at his eye level, just flapping and squawking, and Luke came unglued.  We're talking 0-100 in a split second.  I laughed until I hurt!

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Texting with daughter yesterday morning:

Andrea...."Good morning!  When do you think we could borrow Todd's truck to get that dryer?"

Me...."When is it available?  The dryer I mean."

Andrea...."I can have it whenever.  It's in McKinney.  I couldn't get it today though."

Me...."Could we do it tomorrow?"

Andrea...."I'll have to see when they will be home."

Me...."Um...Why are we furiously typing on these tiny little keyboards instead of talking on Alexander Graham Bell's wonderful invention?  I'm getting a cramp in my thumb."

Andrea...."Lol!  OK, I'll call."

Sheesh....kids!

S