On March 22 of this year Corey
posted to his blog for the first time in two years. Apparently it had been due to a request made
when I mentioned how much I had missed reading his posts. But that is his most recent - nothing
more. So last night he called me to
relate his "Walmart" experience - although he really was not at
Walmart. It just felt like he was. I laughed at his misfortunes. It was nice to go to bed with a smile on my
face. But Corey does have a knack with
relating experiences and telling stories and even making announcements with an
entertaining flair. So the following is
a second-hand account of the things that he related to me.
First off he had to renew something
- he must have mentioned it at least three times, but I failed to understand
exactly what it was that he was renewing, but whatever it is, it needs to be
renewed annually. He has the option of
driving a far distance to the location of whatever it is or he can do it thorough
the local Albertsons. Albertsons is a
grocery store that had several locations throughout the Salt Lake area, but to
the best of my knowledge had all gone out of business; I was not aware that they were in other
locations outside of Utah, but evidently there is one near to his house.
So he drove to the Albertson's and
as he was passing the McDonald's anyway, decided he would get a shake or frappe
or something that he likes. He got in
line for the drive through but learned that the line was not moving as he was
blocking traffic of any other idiotic drivers who were trying to leave or enter
the McDonald's parking lot. NOTHING
McDonald's has to offer is worth my time, but evidently Corey had a hankering
for a particular product.
Realizing that the line wasn't
moving and blocking traffic had become an issue, he decided he would just go
into the McDonald's. I imagine he drove
into the lot and parked his car as Corey just does not seem like the type to
abandon his car at the drive through - even if the line wasn't moving. I don't know how busy it was on the inside,
but Corey assured me that the employees had managed to get every single order
wrong - including his as he had ordered (and probalby paid for) a large but
received a small. And while the
customers ahead and behind him opted for their orders to be corrected, he
settled for his puny sized beverage thinking it really wasn't worth the extra
time to get it corrected (I don't think it would have been worth any amount of
time)
He finally is able to put the
McDonald's fiasco behind him and move onto Albertson's where normally he has to
wait for the renewal, but did not as night crowd isn't as exhausting as
daylight. It would have been perfect if
he could have just left it at that. But
no. He is a good guy who has decided he
will pick up a mega hand sanitizer to take to his work and waits in yet another
line. The customer ahead of him is
standing in line with her kitten who she is holding like one would hold a human
baby. Corey does love cats, but does not
take them out in public - certainly not to the grocery store to wait in
line. I think he must have felt like he
was in the twilight zone.
The lady with the cat had a credit card
or store card or something that required a phone number. Only the phone number isn't working. She's aware that it isn't working and would
like to use her membership number, but the clerk says she doesn't know how to
do that. She hasn't been trained for
entering membership numbers, only phone numbers. She calls the manager over to assist. Fine.
The thing takes her membership number and it was easy and the clerk had
learned how to do membership in the event that she will need it again. But for the purchase of how many ever items
the cat-lady has, her card has been declined.
And so she asks the cashier to take off the chips, take off this, remove
that, until she is down to 1.80 which is the amount that she uses to put on the
card.
For the entire time she is in line,
she ever so often turns to Corey (who is standing behind her) and apologizes
for the inconvenience. When he finally got up to the register, he was praised
by the cashier for his patience. She
didn't hear his inner thoughts asking, "What the hell?" All he wanted
to do was purchase the sanitizer and leave.
By the time Corey finally returned home (after what should have been
30-40 minutes max - but was more than twice the length) he felt he had had an
experience that he needed to show. As
Joh was still at work and Corey was off from work (another plus in his favor)
he called me as it was a blogworthy post that he said he's not going to take
the time to blog.
Before there was interference between
our phones and somehow we were cut off from one another, ironically we had been
talking about the insecurities or "bugs" with electronic systems and
illegal hacking or whatever possesses the electronics to "think" or seemingly
change on their own. Allow me to use his
security system as an example. For no apparent
reason, it started reporting which doors/windows had been left open in
French. It had always been set for English. Corey was both disturbed and amused as he has
taken French and understood the reportings but couldn't explain why they were
being broadcast in French.
He called the security company and
was told that he'd been the second to report that the reports were given in
French. It may or may have not been an epidemic
- weird. We discussed how each of us refer to the echo dot as "she"
and how often "she" spouts information for no apparent reason or
seems to take on a human personality at times.
Joh tells Corey he needs to be nicer to Alexa. It's funny, but it also feels like it could
be a danger. I thought about how Steven
Hawkings had advised against AI (one of many references found here)
Earlier that day Roland received
email on an unpaid Chase bankcard. We
don't have a chase bankcard. I got a scam
phone call from "Microsoft" supposedly. As if my phone is even connected to
Microsoft. I've also had calls about
other unknown credit cards. All
machines. All scare tactics. Reminds me of Orson Wells War of the Worlds. There's going to be panic eventually. Some of us will be able to shake it off -
unfortunately we may not be able to control those who are panicking around us -
those who may go to desperate measures without complete understanding. That's how most people vote, I think. Not everything has to be black and
white. Look for what's beneath the
surface.