Short Circuits

by Dorien Grey

  “Computers,” I am constantly told, “do exactly what you tell them to do. No more, no less.” I beg to differ. I tell a computer to do something and it does whatever it damn well pleases, snickering in its little internal secret code of endless 0s and 1s. (“Ha-ha! You didn’t say ‘Mother, May I?’ ”)

  Okay, I want to do something very simple, like move a file from here to there. Easy as pie. No, make that easy as pi. I see four-year-old kids on TV commercials sending full-color coffee table books of their own photographs to Grandma in New South Wales, while I have a hard time sending an email attachment to a friend a mile away. Quite probably my failure is due, as I have said so many times before, to the fact that my threshold of frustration is so low I have to descend several feet into a hole to find it. Once my slide into frustration starts, I cannot control it and it quickly passes from confusion to anger to Krakatoa-sized rage. Tantrums can be cute in a five-year-old. They are considerably less so in a grown man.

  Yet even as I watch the computer savvy of others effortlessly conjure up wonders from cyberspace, my frustration and attending fury grows. The wonders which come so easily to them could be mine. They should be mine. But they are not, and the computer knows it. It sits there in its cocoon of technology, oozing superiority while regarding me with utter contempt. I know that if I were to spend every day for the rest of my life trying to figure out what everything is for or how to use it, I still wouldn’t be able to get beyond the letter “A” in the computer’s alphabet. Gary has been infinitely patient and far-beyond-the-call-of-duty helpful, and does his best to convince me that I am an intelligent human being. But the computer knows better, and does not hesitate to let me know it.

  I know my comfort level will improve—or so I insist on telling myself in a rather sad attempt to hold onto what passes for sanity. But it is the interim which drives me to distraction. I am a latter-day Neanderthal gazing into the fire of cyberspace, fascinated but clueless, agreeing fully with whoever said that fire makes a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. And right now, it definitely has the upper hand.

  * * *

  AT&T AND ME

  My internet service is via something called DSL, which is an option provided by AT&T at a rate far lower than combined phone-internet service. Since I buy my cell-phone service in blocks of 500 minutes for $50 (which can last me sometimes four months or longer) and therefore have no monthly-fee contract with any telephone provider, I signed up.

  My third-in-18-months DSL modem (a Motorola) died eight days ago and I’m still waiting for a replacement.

  The day before yesterday (Tuesday), an AT&T phone repairman actually did show up at 10 a.m. (six days into the problem and my sixth day without internet service) only long enough to tell me that the phone lines to my new apartment were “shot” and needed to be replaced, that someone would be over to fix the problem “within 24 hours,” I called them once again at 2:00 yesterday (Wednesday). I went through my by-now-rote recitation of the problem, that it had been dragging on for (then) seven days, and that I relied on the internet for my business—which is true to a large extent—only to be told that no work order had yet been placed, but that because they would try to get someone out here by 4 p.m. today, if that was alright. I told them no, after seven days of waiting, 4 p.m. was NOT alright, and that I expected someone to be here no later than 8:30 this morning. After being put on hold several times while the person I was talking to conversed with higher powers, she reluctantly—and I am sure now, condescendingly—agreed that someone would be here “first thing Thursday morning.” “For sure?” “Yes. Definitely.”

  It is now 1:31 p.m. Thursday afternoon and I have not seen an AT&T repairman. I have not received a telephone call from an AT&T repairman. What I have seen is red! Lots and lots of red. Even knowing that my anger/rage/frustration is an absolute, total exercise in futility, I still rage. AT&T will get here, if it ever deigns to do so, in its own good time and on its own schedule. After all, who in the hell do I think I am, anyway? A mere mortal having the unmitigated gall to complain about a Corporation’s service?

  Oh, but they are clever! “They’ll call first,” I was told, which I now realize was their way of saying “just shut up and wait.” They may consider 1:31 p.m. to be “first thing in the morning” but I do not. And the brilliance of “they’ll call first” is to prevent me from getting on the phone yet again to interfere with their busy day. It effectively assures that I will not call since, if I did, while I am on hold for 15 minutes waiting to talk to someone, I am providing them with a solid base for what would undoubtedly be their later claim that “the repairman tried to reach you, but your line was busy.”

  I realize I exist, in AT&T’s eyes, solely as one tiny red corpuscle of income in the vast blood flow of the corporate body, and that there is no possible way they could give a rat’s behind that they have kept me in a state alternating between (and frequently a combination of) frustration and rage for eight days. (“And we should care…why?”)

  Now, let me make it perfectly clear lest AT&T attorneys begin knocking on my door, that all this is a simple recitation of my personal experiences. I am positive no one else in the history of the world has had a similar one. And I am not, in any way, shape, or form suggesting for one instant that you should avoid any…ANY…contact with AT&T like the plague, as I certainly would do if just now considering going with them. No, no, I am sure your association with this august, revered, and omnipotent/omniscient corporate giant would be absolutely flawless. I am quite sure any possible complaint—though the mere idea of a complaint probably would never arise—would be dealt with expeditiously and efficiently, and you would nestle forever in their warm, loving embrace; the perfect marriage of fragile, flawed human and loving, caring, protective corporation.

  And me? Well, what’s there to say? I am a troublemaker, a curmudgeon of the first order, and a lightning rod for disasters, real and contrived. If I am unhappy with AT&T, I am perfectly free to choose another gigantic conglomerate corporative carrier who will, I am sure, treat me as a valued customer. Riiight!

  * * *

  CHARLIE BROWN

  I’ve always identified with Charles Schulz’s Charlie Brown, though I never pined after a little redheaded girl—or any girl for that matter. My life has been full of both human and corporate Lucy van Pelts, however, each one of whom I trusted, and each one of whom took/takes perverse glee in frustrating the crap out of me at every turn.

  I recently moved directly across the hall from Apartment #906 to Apartment #907, which nonetheless requires a full change of address routine. So I went on line to the U.S. Postal Service (ah, the irony of that last word) to use their simple-as-pi, so-easy-a-caveman-can-do-it instructions. And simple they are.

  Question: “Start date of change.” I type in “04/03/10” and move on, filled with pride at the keenness of my comprehension.

  Question: “Date of Birth” (small arrows to the right of small rectangular boxes marked “Month,” “Date,” “Year”). I click on the little arrow beside the “Month” box and scroll down to November. I click again, and “11” appears in the Month box. I go to “Date,” click on the little arrow, and scroll down to 14, click again. “14 appears” in the date box. I am giddy with delight! I move to “Year,” scroll down—way, waaaay down—to 1933, click. “1933” appears in the “Year” box.

  I move on, and suddenly, two or three questions later a box pops up on the screen saying “The date format should be: mm/dd/yyyy.” Excuse me? That was two or three questions ago, and that’s exactly what I did. Also, it’s the only question involving dates, so it has to be referring to that. But I go back and repeat the steps quoted in the paragraph above. Exactly the same results. I mean, all I have to do is scroll and click, and I sure as hell should know my own birthday by this time.

  I move on to where I left off. Before I can even read it, another pop-up box appears saying “Provide start date of change.” I did provide the start date of
change: 04/13/10. I go back to check and see they wanted “mm/dd/yyyy,” and I’d only provided “yy.” Okay, I’ll give ‘em that. I change it to 04/03/10.

  Back yet again to where I’d left off. A box pops onto the screen saying: “The date format should be : mm/dd/yyyy.” That’s what I just put in, you scum-sucking idiots! Can’t you f***ing READ?

  I go back yet again to the very beginning. Birthday is shown as 11/14/1933, exactly what they say they want. I check the start day of service: 04/03/2010, exactly what they say they want. I go back to resume the questionnaire, shoulders hunched, eyes slitted, glancing defensively over my shoulder lest the USPS is sneaking up on me from behind with a sharpened letter-opener.

  Everything appears to be perfect. It’s exactly, exactly, what they said they wanted. I move to the next question. A pop-up window appears on my screen. “The date format should be: mm/dd/yyyy” and is immediately overlaid with another pop-up window saying, “Provide start date of change.”

  I grasp my right wrist firmly with my left hand and force my right index finger to the little red “Cancel” circle at the top left of the screen. The entire page disappears, hopefully forever.

  But like Charlie Brown, I know I can’t resist Lucy’s promises that this time she’ll hold the football in place and not yank it away at the last second. So I will go back to the U.S. Postal Service Convenient Change of Address Online Form tomorrow, knowing full well that it will not matter. That I can do nothing until I put in mm/dd/yyyy and tell them the start date.

  Bureaucracy holds the football, and don’t you ever forget it.

  Now, would anyone who feels I am not amply justified in feeling more than a little paranoid please raise their hands?….No one? I thought not.

  * * *

  SHIVA

  Walt Kelly, the cartoonist who gave the world Pogo, came up with any number of marvelous quotes, but the one that I seem always to remember first is his classic: “I have met the enemy, and he is us.”

  It seems we are a society at war with ourselves, and we are losing.

  At the information desk at the shopping mall where I work, we have one of those cards with “Open” on one side and with a clock face with moveable hands and “Back at…” on the other, which we use at the information desk when we have to step away for a moment. We lay it on the counter while we’re gone.

  Sunday, I used it when I went to the restroom. When I returned, it was gone. This was the second time in two weeks. Who in hell would steal a “Back in” card? What possible use could it be to anyone…especially since, after the first theft, the replacement card had “Century Shopping Center” printed on it. Still, someone took it. Who would do such a thing, and why? What possible reason could they have?

  The same reason, I suppose, why pay phones regularly have their receivers smashed or yanked out, or graffiti is sprayed on freshly-painted walls, or any number of utterly senseless acts of vandalism. What are the people who do this thinking? Do they feel they have so very little control over their own lives that the only way they can feel powerful is to destroy something?

  There is an old proverb to the effect that “Those who cannot create, destroy.” Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, would be proud.

  That ours is increasingly a society of the disenfranchised is sadly self-evident. And that there are more destroyers among us is not really surprising when you consider that, even if only two percent of the population resorts to destruction as a means of self-expression, the sheer size of our rapidly growing population increases the number of the destroyers among us, and the damage they do is far out of proportion to their number.

  * * *

  LOGIC

  There are many definitions of the word “logic,” but I prefer this one: “the quality of being justifiable by reason.” The problem with that one, though, is that the word “reason” has a number of definitions of its own.

  Like all things not scientifically provable—truth, for example—logic tends to be relative. What is logical and reasonable to me may not be logical and reasonable to you.

  I’ve always thought of myself as a logical person. While the world is made up of far more shades of gray than solid whites or blacks, I use a simple rule when it comes to my own logic; if anything raises a question in my mind, I go with the answer that makes the most sense to me.

  It’s been a great and constant source of frustration for me that while I know that mathematics is based entirely on logic, I have never been able to get beyond the “if Johnny has three apples and gives Billy two” stage. Try as I might, I just don’t get it. The only class I ever failed in my four years of college was geometry (or was it algebra? One of those signs-and-symbols things).

  Instruction manuals are another form of logic which totally, completely escape me. I try. Really, I do. I’ll buy something requiring “some assembly,” carefully take out the manual, set it and the 4,792 various pieces out in front me. I get perhaps as far as the period in the second sentence in the manual, and I’m totally lost. Where’s my logic when I need it?

  I really don’t have trouble with those things ruled by the laws of science. I may not understand them, but I accept them, if only because I don’t feel competent to question them in depth. But it is those things dealing with the human mind and human reactions and responses where the problem comes in. I am constantly dumbfounded by the ease with which most people simply ignore or walk around bottomless chasms of illogic as though they weren’t there.

  Religion is only one example of how willing people seem to be to accept the most ridiculous premises without the slightest question. Perhaps it is because logic requires a certain amount of question-asking, which in turn requires thought. Much easier to simply accept whatever you’re told. Even the most cursory glance at a newspaper, magazine, or television program demonstrates that when it comes logic, the most basic rules of common sense simply do not apply.

  Just as The Golden Rule is given universal lip service and is generally universally ignored, so is the totally logical caveat, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Whether it is naivety or greed or a combination of the two, in almost any conflict involving them on the one side and logic on the other, don’t put your money on logic.

  While I’d love to take the high ground and claim that my life operates entirely on logic, I’m afraid I can’t do it. A certain amount of illogic seems to just be a part of the human character. It’s the overwhelming disproportion of illogic to logic that worries me.

  Did that make any sense?

  * * *

  WHY AND BECAUSE

  I am constantly asking questions to which no one seems to have what I consider to be a logical answer.

  “Why” is, even to a child, a very logical question, and my agnosticism stems directly from the dearth of acceptable “becauses” I received to them in Sunday school. Most of the things I was told there struck me, even then, as totally illogical, and they still do. I have always been willing to accept many things on faith, draw the line at mindless acceptance.

  My parents were not particularly religious, but my mom thought it would be good for me to be sent off to Sunday school each week. I attended, as I recall, an evangelical church of some kind, and it was not a match made in Heaven. The minister and congregation were of the “we are but dirt beneath God’s feet” school, and that concept alone totally alienated me. If God created me in His image, how could I be dirt under His feet? Even in the days before computers, it did not compute. If God is Love, how was it that so many of the people who presumed to speak in His name taught—and teach—hatred and intolerance?

  I was constantly reminded of Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner,” in which a group called the Lily-Whiters had a marvelous theme song: “We are the Lily-Whiters, brave and pure and strong! We are the Always-Righters; everyone else is wrong.” That pretty much summed up organized religion for me.

  The fork in the road, for me, occurred one Sunday, after the usual scari
ng-the-hell-out-of-everyone (literally) lesson on the evils of just about everything, and on the fires of hell which were lapping at our feet every second of our existence. The teacher went on to contrast this with the glories of Heaven, in which there was never, ever, a single problem or an instant of sadness.

  I made the mistake of asking the teacher what I thought was a perfectly logical question: if my best friend somehow goes to hell and I somehow go to Heaven, won’t I miss him and be sad because he isn’t there with me? The question was greeted with a deer-in-the-headlights stunned silence quickly followed by an out of hand dismissal. That was clearly the end of my formal religious instruction.

  I’ve often wondered how they would have reacted had they known I was gay?

  So the church and I parted ways with a mutual sense of relief and I have never willingly entered a church since. (When I do, for funerals or weddings, I am intensely uncomfortable.)

  I have no quarrel with those who truly find comfort in organized religion, but I believe (and we are talking here about beliefs) with all my heart and soul…and, yes, I do believe I have a soul…that if everyone were simply to live by the Golden Rule, there would be no need for the Lily-Whiters of organized religion. We could all gather on Sunday morning to socialize and address questions of how to deal with the very real problems confronting mankind: hunger and disease and poverty and rampant social injustice. We should and could concentrate our energies on improving the world in which we are living rather than chasing a dangled carrot of what might come after.

  I’ve never been able to comprehend how normally intelligent people so readily accept illogic on the basis of “faith.” Maybe, again that’s one of the reasons I’m agnostic…I just can’t do it. The same people who readily understand that laws of the physical universe prevent pigs from flying totally accept without question the proposition that Jesus ascended bodily into Heaven. I’m really sorry, but the word “faith” utterly dismisses logic.