conversations.

“…and she was like OH MY GOD…”

Before I start talking about what I want to start talking about, I would like to note an incident that prompted mention but was not quite magnificent enough (in and of itself) to warrant a whole entry.

I was walking to class this morning, approaching a crosswalk by the park at the same time as some upper-side-of-50 woman and her Golden Retriever.  It was a strange retriever – small, but definitely old.  It had a red handkerchief around its neck.  When it saw me, it instantly bounded toward me and, knowing it was just a retriever, I put my hand out in smiled.  It licked my hand a few times before its master called back to it and it retreated.

Heard from afar, back turned as I continued my walk: “is that what we do?  Huh?  Is that what we do when we walk?  No.  You know that’s not what we do.  Don’t you know that?”

My thoughts – exactly at which point is the dog supposed to respond?  Or is the question rhetorical?  Are we assuming the dog already knows it did wrong?  It bothers me when people attempt to converse with animals.  I’m not sure I see the point.  Commands are cool.  Revealing your life secrets after one too many rum-and-cokes even better.  But asking it questions?  IT CAN’T RESPOND.  There.  Now please, don’t do it again.

Oh, and it’s called a leash for future references.  Nice dog and all, but damn, hippies are ignorant of this magical invention which gives the owner full control of his/her dog at all times.  Truly innovative stuff, those leashes.  Space age technology.

But what I really want to talk about is another conversation entirely.  This one far more existentially grating.

You see, when I actually got to class, I arrived maybe 10 minutes early.  Not entirely uncommon.  Given that I walk 15 minutes to class every day, I like to leave myself a little margin for error.  In case I have to go to the bathroom or the weather’s bad or something.  So I get there a bit early and take my seat, and there’s maybe five or six people in the room – enough to be a presence but not enough for even light chatter – so we’re all sitting in silence waiting for the professor arrive.

Suddenly, a girl’s phone rings in the back of the room.  Again, not uncommon.  Class hasn’t started.  I won’t fault her for it (it does annoy me when 22-year-olds allow their phones to go off during class though, not that I exactly give a well-invested damn about social graces in academia, but I feel if nothing else we should all have learned in four years’ time that our phones have vibrate functions, and that in the real world people judge you for being a complete frickin’ moron.)

But she doesn’t turn it off.  She doesn’t even let it ring out to voicemail.  No.  She answers it.

Before I even get into her conversation, I’ll just say that people who have phone conversations in inappropriate places annoy the hell out of me.  If she would have answered it and left the room, I would have had no problem.  But I just feel there’s some unwritten rule that says it’s inappropriate, rude or just dumb to have a phone conversation in an otherwise silent room with five or six other people just sitting around.  I would have the same problem with somebody having a phone conversation in an elevator or on a bus, and I’ve witnessed both.  I guess I’m just more considerate about the secondary audience of my conversations.  So that’s strike one.

But it gets exponentially worse when the conversation unfolds as follows:

“OH MY GOD did you see him on Facebook?  What the fuck?  Ha, I know, what the fuck!  Do you fucking think that he’s fucking his roomate?  Yeah.  No, I know, I saw him on Facebook.  I fucking swear they’re fucking roommates.  Yeah I know, what the fuck?  Okay, talk to you later, love you!”

I don’t know that the conversation could have been much dumber.  Any conversation that starts out with OH MY GOD and invokes Facebook nine words in is, by default, absolutely south of stupid.  Throw in her propensity for using the word “fuck” as a verbal pause, and it was just embarrassing really.  I just want to deck most people who have phone conversations in inappropriate places.  This girl, I wanted to mute her for her own sake.  Because now, I’m sure those five or six people that were forced to listen to her conversation along with me now think she’s the most stereotypically stupid sororistute in the whole of Indiana.  If not the universe entirely.

Seriously – what has to be wrong with you to not register that as inappropriate?  What missing gene codes for common sense in social operation?  Osama bin Laden would probably concur that such conduct was inappropriate.  It blows my mind that anyone thinks it’s okay to do that.  No, it’s not the worst thing in the world.  But it amplifies your stupidity tenfold when you pick up a phone and proceed to have that conversation.  I was afraid for a moment that the stupid was contagious and I might start scribbling WTF OMG LOLLERCOASTER in my notebook (as it happens, I only doodled a velociraptor playing basketball with a giraffe.)

Please, don’t have phone conversations where they’re not welcome.  And Godforbid if you absolutely have to, don’t make them into admissable evidence as to why you should no longer be allowed to breathe.  It’s not even that it annoys me so much as it just makes you look completely inept at life.  And trust me, life is a bad thing to be inept at.

Flying Cars.

If man measures progress by what has been depicted in science fiction film and television, then no offense, but we fucking suck.

I still can’t believe, some 80 years after it was suggested at Epcot, that we do not have flying cars.  What gives?  This naturally leads us to ask two questions: was our first prediction perhaps off-base, a bit unrealistic, an unattainable goal?  Or are we just so utterly incompetent as to prioritize all technological progress toward making video game systems that allow us to avoid actually going outside and doing things?

Cars have been around a long time.  Yet the most we’ve advanced in the last 20 years is a line of hybrid models that are priced out of 80 percent of the American population and don’t even make those who can afford them look cool for their purchasing decision?  Lame.  When I was a kid, I imagined a day would come when there would exist a car that drove itself and responded to voice command.  That is to say, as a kid, I imagined that I could climb in a parent-less vehicle and simply say “McDonald’s” and the car would auto-pilot its way toward the nearest artery-clogging McPlayplace.  This was ideal for several reasons.  For one, I had not yet learned to drive (I would not accomplish that feat until the release of Grand Theft Auto III for the PlayStation 2)  Secondly, even at the age of eight – an age where I still believed McDonald’s was something I wanted to put in my digestive system – I knew that driving was a tedious task that caused my parents to beat me and constantly re-assure me that no, we were not at Six Flags yet, and the next time I asked I would be sold into underground sex slavery.  In retrospect, I think underground sex slavery really missed out.

But do they have that car, the one that can respond to your voice commands and just drive you where you tell it to drive you?  Yes they do.  In Minority Report.  Does that do me any good?  Hell no.  I mean, come on, people tasked with innovating (also known as…innovators!)  How difficult could it be?  Look at all the other cool but useless shit you’ve come up with over the last 20 years.  Laser tag!  Mini-disc players!  Those stupid sneakers that can turn into skates!  You’ve given us those things, but no flying cars?  No auto-pilot system?  I would think the forward thinkers of yesteryear would be ashamed of our shortcomings.  If we hadn’t invented the Wii, I mean.  Their minds would probably be blown by that.

I get this perception from science fiction film and literature that, eventually, we’re supposed to create products for the greater good and move toward this massive utopian community, but then I see the latest Sharper Image catalog and realize we are not in fact inventing anything useful at all.  Oh, sure, riddle me your advances in modern medicine and agriculture, but I’ll raise you an Ionic Breeze.  I can’t imagine how much effort and marketing went into that device, and what do we come to find out?  It does nothing.  It literally just stands there and does nothing but plot your demise.  And hell, we’ve already got Obama’s health care plan for that!

If we ever do reach this societal milestone, though, this technological pinnacle of realizing the flying car – what then?  What comes next?  What invention must we realize next to successfully advance?  I, for one, propose that – should we accomplish the goal of inventing and manufacturing the flying car – we then set our sights on robots that go around hugging people.  Because there just aren’t enough hugs to go around for everyone in this world.  People, generally being assholes, cannot provide a sufficient quota of hugs for all the global hug-needing population.  It’s just not going to happen, unless we all start listening to more John Mayer.  And that’s just not going to happen in a world where emos exist and the third world is still stuck on House of Pain.  So hugging robots are the only logical solution.  Sure, some might say the need to find a cure for cancer is more pressing, or that we should eventually invest in technology that counteracts global warming and reverses climate change.  But can’t those things wait?  You tell me, on a day where you get in a fight with your internet girlfriend, spill hot wax on your capris and accidentally dook your pants while jogging, what are you going to want on that day, huh?  Climate change reversal or a hug?  I’m going to guess you’ll want a hug.  Because climate correction isn’t going to change the fact that you dooked your pants.  Neither will a hug, I suppose, but at least the hug will allow you to clench the rest of the way home with just the smallest shred of hope in your pathetic little soul.

None of this matters, of course, because humanity will be so damn pre-occupied inventing crap nobody actually needs for this entire proposed duration.  Hey, a titration filter that rids tap water of 99.7 percent of all known cosmic death rays!  A recliner that massages your lumbar verterbrae while simultaneusly applying an enema!  A fountain pen that writes in ink colored to match your mood!  A videogame where you play yourself playing a videogame!  A car with a video camera inside the trunk!  A motion sensor which detects Lord Voldemort and most known Death Eaters!  Earphones you can wear on your nipples!

Actually that last one sounds pretty damn cool.  If you have some John Mayer to go along with it.

Craigslist.

Your first post, and it’s about freaking Craigslist?  Well, duh.  Of course it’s about Craigslist.  Craigslist is the first thing I want to talk about on this blog.

Look, I don’t know the history of Craigslist.  Could be some kindly prospector in Oak Mountain, Alabama started it up.  Maybe it was founded by a real up-and-comer in Silicon Valley, hell, maybe it was uncovered in Tutankhamen’s Tomb.  Hell if I know how it got started up.  All I know is, it’s around.

And Craigslist is someone’s moment of pure brilliance.  It’s genius in concept.  Need a job?  Stop on over at Craigslist, you can see if anyone is interested in your services.  If you’re an employer, you can advertise for need of service.  It’s efficient, simple, two-way communication between people who want and people who have.  Want a car?  Somebody has one that they’re willing to offload.  Want a pool table?  Well some guy is moving to Phoenix next week and is willing to sell his at a discounted price because there just isn’t a cost-efficient way to move the damn thing.

Oh, you can get sex too.  Like, lots of sex.  Like, mostly sex.

Because let’s face it, Craigslist is essentially the digital version of a Super Wal-Mart.  You can get your television.  You can get your groceries.  You can get your car serviced.  And if you make eye contact with that portly fellow in the brown trenchcoat, you can even get yourself serviced in the third stall to the right of the men’s restroom.  Just mind the fella freebasing next door, we’re trying to keep that one on the downlow!

It’s online stop-and-shop at its best.  And the best part is that it’s policed exactly like Wal-Mart.  They put up a lot of flashy surveillance equipment that really is nothing more than an upside-down, spray-painted snowglobe, and they might tell you that shoplifting is  a crime and that you should report suspicious behavior to the manager.  But when it comes down to it, there’s just little reason to give a damn about what anyone else is doing.  As long as they’re not terrorists.  That doesn’t fly.

But erotic massages?  Bring ‘em on.  I mean, even in this economy, we should all be able to make a quick buck or two in that department.  God bless the America that openly allows vaguely-worded ads for prostitution.  I just want to meet the man who actually just wanted the massage.  Some scantily-clad, dark-eyed, dolled-up version of some third-rate Prom King or Queen shows up at the door wearing only a junior high track shirt from the discount rack at Goodwill and mud-crusted jean shorts that leave little to the imagination…I want to meet the man who just ordered the massage.  And then I want to hear what happened for the rest of that hour’s worth of service he ordered.  Did they discuss Obama’s health care plan?  Or maybe they played a quick game of Scrabble?  Does he get another massage?  Does the erotic masseuse even know how to give massages?  Of course these are all questions that run through my mind every time I reply to such ads.

Beyond the not-so-cleverly-disguised prostitution ads though, is the “casual encounters” section of the site, which might be my favorite of all.  Yeah, it’s fun to peruse for boat parts or first edition Animorphs titles, but that’s only until you get the nerve to click on over to “casual encounters.”  And Craigslist, the thing you’ll always be able to say in their support, Craigslist never discriminates.  Three transsexual mailmen looking for a ventriloquist for an evening of charades and S&M?  There’s a section for that.  Dendrophiliac looking for other like-minded individuals to tie you to a giant redwood tree and rub sap on your hindparts?  Craigslist has your back.  Perhaps you’re just a bored married couple hoping to re-vitalize your partnership by finding some carnival folk who host mass orgies on the rundown tilt-a-whirl ride?  Well, expect those divorce papers to be drawn up in the coming months, but there’s cotton candy and contraceptives aplenty come closing time, provided you’re willing to let the clowns watch.  And, with your consent, record for posterity’s sake (which means straight to the internet.)

There really are no limits to this section of the site.  It’s a freakshow for the internet age.  I have this image in my mind of folks gathering elsewhere, before Craigslist existed, to market their deviant behaviors.  I think this place used to be called the adult bookstore, or depending on your proximity to any number of vast metropolitan areas, the adult movie theater.  And it’s a shame that Craigslist has done these places in, because I just can’t find a good adult bookstore or movie theater these days.  Nowadays, the juiciest literature I can find is in the bargain bin at T.J. Maxx and features shirtless Aztec warriors clinging tightly to harlots in purple petticoats.  It’s a disservice, really, to the literate crowd seeking a far more provocative plot than barrel-chested brute conquers foreign barbarians and heart of helpless princess captured by the enemy hordes.  And penetration, they skimp on that too.  But I digress.  Point is – weirdos used to actually physically congregate.  Now they just hide behind mirror shots they stole from people they barely know on Facebook because they’re always wary of the slim chance that their husband/wife/boss/co-worker/great uncle Melvin will stumble across the site and correctly out them for the crossdressing freak they really are.

It would be interesting to take a poll of Craigslist services and identify what percentage of users used the site for sexual gratification versus what percentage of users used the site for all other services.  I can almost guarantee that 95 percent of all traffic on that site is concentrated in closed door sessions.  It might be a one-stop shop, but everyone’s there to tap twice on the tiled floor, make no qualms about it.

And there’s something pretty damn American about that, if you ask me.