Declare war on machinery

I have always said that I will give up my computer as long as everyone else does as well. I am not a ludd-ite, but I do fear that machines will take over. No, not in the way that science fiction authors loved to write about in the 1950s and 1960s. (They don't write books about that stuff anymore, do they?)

I can't stand the way people have conditioned themselves to leap to their phones whenever it rings. It bothers me that people think 8-year-olds can program a VCR better than adults. (I can kick ANY 8-year-old's butt in a VCR programming match!) I am annoyed that some days I "interface" more with a machine, than with real people. (And my job is education...)

When making a selection at the Pepsi machine, I learned how much machines mock us. You see, if you put your money in, and make your selection, sometimes the machine starts to churn, make noise, and even mimic the sound of the plastic bottle falling down. I used to bend over and wait as soon as I made my selection. That is until I saw someone else do it and became very conscious of this little area of control that this machine is trying to wrest away from my life.

Now, each time I visit the machine I make a selection and then act like I don't care. I will not even look at the machine while it is trying to get my attention with false starts, whirring noises, etc. I now refuse to feed a dollar to the machine more than a few times. If I have to put the same dollar into a drink machine 5 times to get it to do what I want, then I really don't need a Wild Cherry Pepsi. The loss of my autonomy is not worth it.

Man, now I'm thirsty.
--gh