I Can't Get Away From It

I was at the gym earlier today, where they force me to watch the news for the forty five minutes as I’m doing cardio. I guess it’s supposed to make me run faster. I would run a lot faster if they put the TV behind me and I could pretend I'm running away from the world.

The big story this morning, of course, is the conflict in the Middle East. Hezbollah was celebrating the cease fire by firing off their guns. Does that say it all? It’s like an impulse for them. They fire when they’re happy or angry or bored or anti-Semitic. You know, they hate the West too, but they’re very Americanized. They have a Gap in Iran… that sells the coolest suicide bomber belts. Blow yourself up in fashion, that’s the slogan.

Then a story came on about the let up of carry on restrictions at airports and I thought, “Oh good, they're allowing us to bring lipstick on planes again-- cause you want to look good going down.” Most of these things we have to do at the security check point don’t make any sense. Once again, we all have to take our shoes off and put them on the belt. This I do understand, because that dude tried to blow up a plane using his shoes. It’s a pain in my ass, wish he had tried to blow up his bra. That’s what we need—to catch a Bra Bomber.

Now they can’t just beat us down a 100% of the time with these depressing stories of violence and hate. So they do it 90% of the time. They use that other 10% to throw in a human interest story. Something most people could care less about: Boy blows biggest bubble in the world. A dog that can walk upright like a human. Some new diet for us to pin our hopes on. Stuff like that. But it was interesting to learn that the personal computer is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary. The first computer only had 17 kilobytes of memory. (That is a good fact to toss into a conversation and make myself look smarter.) Now computers are in virtually everything we touch.

In fact, washers and dryers are going to link wirelessly to your computer or cell phone so they can send us updates when a wash is done or a lint filter is clogged.

The last thing I need is a text message from my dryer. I get enough emails I don’t need from people—now I have to communicate with my electronics. I’m fine with guessing when a load is done. I’m usually plus or minus five minutes. However, I would like an email if someone in the laundry matt is taking my clothes out of the dryer and putting them on top of the machine.

But the LAST thing I need are text messages from THINGS: I’m out to dinner and my phone starts shaking, “Everything OK?”
“Yeah, my dishwasher’s mad at me. I got to run.”


© Copyright Orny Adams, Icrushed Productions 2006
www.ornyadams.com