American Consequences - August 2019

Fried Chicken frozen TV dinners and learn how to cook something healthy, Fatso.” If the SMART BATHROOM SCALE is in league with the Smart Microwave and thinks telling me what I really weigh is a smart idea, it’s about to find out just how heavy the big back tire on my John Deere is. The SMARTVACUUM CLEANER doesn’t look so smart anymore... The iRobot Roomba i7+ may have AI, but my Labrador retriever has teeth. And who needs a $2,430 Husqvarna Automower 315 SMART LAWNMOWER that mows the lawn automatically when you’ve got teens who mow the lawn automatically (if a lot of nagging counts as automation) in return for the car keys? (Although there is the matter of that $2,430 body and fender repair from when Buster backed into the phone pole...) I also don’t need a 5G high-def 2.0 version HOME SURVEILLANCE CAMERA . I mentioned I have teens. Do you think I want to know what goes on when they’re home and my wife and I aren’t? Besides, they leave evidence that even Sherlock’s dumbass sidekick Dr. Watson could make accurate deductions from. “I detect that someone has tried to flush a pony keg down the toilet.” And that’s just some of the new stuff from the “Internet of Things.” What things will get smart next? Are we ready for “Smarty Pants”? A pair of slacks that send you a text message: “We really do make your butt look big.”

The Internet of Things – when I hear the phase I feel like things are not only getting too smart but are also starting to gang up on me. It makes my flesh crawl... This is the kind of medical information that my smartwatch would send directly to my in-home senior caregiver... if I owned a smartwatch. I don’t, because I own Chicago’s first album released in 1969, when smart people were skeptical about the benefits of technology, even the analog kind with very limited intelligence. Cue: As I was walking down the street one day A man came up to me and asked me what the time was on my watch, And I said Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? If so I can’t imagine why We’ve all got time enough to cry... Cry, "Enough already with the Smart Devices!" Plus there's this to consider... Two ordinary middle-American old married men are playing golf. First Golfer : Take a look at this golf ball. Doesn't matter how bad you hook or slice. It's got a flashing red light and a beeper and a GPS chip and a Bluetooth tracking locator and a camera that sends you a selfie of its location. Second Golfer : Wow! Where did you get that golf ball? First Golfer : I found it.

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August 2019

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