Broken cars and computers

Well, our computer has a virus. It is on our nice computer, too. Shoot. It is a virus that makes it so we keep getting warned that our computer has a virus. Like it is trying to trick us, trying to make us think that it is on our side. I am obviously not fooled, but I am irritated. It frequently throws like four Internet Explorer browser windows at a time up on the screen, all advising me to download this or that antivirus software immediately, which, by my so doing, would either embed the present viruses even deeper, or introduce new ones, or both.

So here I am. It's kind of the same feeling I get when there is a problem with our car. The feeling of "man, I really wish I knew my way around this piece of technology." I don't know what to do to get rid of a computer virus! I went to Add/Remove Programs and uninstalled a bunch of weird-looking stuff there, so I feel I've done all I can. Like when my old Ford Escort's engine would start overheating in the winter of my senior year of high school. I would pull over, pop open the hood, scoop up an armful of snow, and throw it in there right onto the engine. Steam would rise from the quickly-diminishing pile as the engine's heat pulled the snow down around itself. And I would stand back and think to myself, "Well, as long as that keeps working..." I can't seem to remember what I would do for the overheating engine once spring came and the only snow available was nestled a three-hour uphill hike away in the shady parts of the Wasatch Mountains. I guess it was a problem that just went away. And I think that's what I'm hoping will happen with this spyware epidemic. If I keep closing those popup windows with enough persistence and determination, they will eventually realize that I am far too much work to bother with, and they, like my car's engine problems, will quietly disappear. Knock on wood.

What will really probably end up happening will be that I will go to Best Buy and stand in line at the customer service desk, waiting my turn to whine to the techno-whiz wearing the funky-mod hairstyle and the Geek Squad name tag.

Clearly, "Yes We Can"

Hey! So this last Tuesday night we all took part something that should change the world forever!

Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. Thank goodness. As I was watching him speak to the crowd of well over 100,000 that gathered in Chicago to celebrate his election, I realized how much of my heart had gotten into his bid and campaign for the White House. Now, this might be a stupid way to preface what I'm about to say, but I cried in the movie Independence Day. The one with Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and some aliens. And the Star Trek guy. I cried at the part where President Bill Pullman gets up at the airfield in the early morning light and gives that speech about "we will not go quietly into the night!" So I am a crybaby. But the tears I shed listening to President-elect Obama were quite different. I was struck by the myriad implications of the event. It seems that we, as a people, have it in us to not just say we can look past race, but to actually really look past it. So many are talking about how incredible it is that we elected a black man to be our president. I think it is incredible and beautiful that we elected such a great man to be president. Not because he is black, because he is great! Because he instilled in us a hope that we've seen politicians talk about and allude to, but never really deliver. Barack Obama delivered it.



Now analysts are picking apart the possibilities that he will be able to follow through on all the promises he made during the campaign. For the first time I feel hopeful that the new president will be able to something more groundbreaking and history-changing than just hold the White House down. I mean that not as a slight to our recent Commanders-in-Chief, but as an indication that I (and I believe many Americans) usually just take it for granted that the President will just keep doing the things that Presidents do, and we'll all probably feel mostly unaffected by it. Maybe that's not being fair to the Presidents who've served during my lifetime, but that's how I've always felt. Not now. We have the opportunity to work beside a unique person now, for the betterment of our country, our present and our future. It is my feeling that people like him don't come along every century. That he happens to be black only makes it more apparent that America is at a turning point. It appears our potential is far higher than many around the world had come to believe. We have the chance to run in the direction we pointed ourselves in when we elected Barack Obama. I say full steam ahead.

What was that guy's problem?

Hey. Well, yesterday something happened to me that made me think. I thought about it for a whole ten minutes after it happened (which, in today's world, is a hefty block of time to be just thinking about one thing), and then for an undisclosed amount of minutes later on! Yeah, really a lot of thinking! I work at a bank as a teller. They always tell us that we're the front line, the face of the bank to the customers. Wow, what an honor. When I hear that I wonder what the "front line" people in other lines of business get paid in comparison to those not on the front line. The ratio is probably more or less consistent all across the board, actually; front-liners are a dime a dozen. Just hire up the starving college students and throw them at the none-the-wiser patron. Ah, to be upper management...

Anyways, I was starting to tell about this old man who came into the bank, who comes into the bank every day. He usually purchases between two and seven money orders each day, in seemingly arbitrary amounts. I assume they are used to fend off bill collectors. Seems to me to be an awful lot of bills, but whatever. Yesterday he came up to my window and no sooner had he groaned to a halt than he was in rapid-fire mode. Apparently he had a discrepancy in the balancing of his check register, and we (the bank - when you work for a company, you are always the company, and occupy the same pronoun as the company, and are not individual from the company, especially when there are accusations to be made, regardless of how long you've worked there, or of your involvement in the incident in questions), yes, we had gotten the balance in his account wrong. So I rephrased his concern back to him, in what I thought to be an indication that I was doing my utmost to be sure that I understood his concern. I felt that this would help him feel that I was really going to help him with a solution to fit his need. Also, I was pretty unclear as to what the real problem was, due to his swarthy, hard-to-follow narrative, so I had to make sure I got it right for both our sakes. To my surprise, he got upset.

He said, "Now hold on! I'm asking the questions here, and it's your job to answer them. Don't just spout facts at me!" Thus began a little exchange in which he consistently treated me like I was basically an idiot. As I tried again to tell him what I was going to do to fix his problem as I understood it, he said, "No, hold on! Let me finish asking a question, and then you can talk. That's how it normally works." Our eyes locked. I could feel something coming, I could feel air being pushed up my throat, air that would meet the words my brain was thinking somewhere behind my nose and carry them out of my mouth. The words that I probably should not have said, but they were already there, so... I said, "Okay! Let's have a normal conversation, then. I'm listening." Yep. And he caught on. Yep. "Hey, take it easy, boy!" That's what he said. He called me boy. He was mad, and I guess rightly so, because I had been a smart-aleck. There you go.

This event made me think about how much and at the same time how little generation gaps matter. What etiquette am I, as someone in my twenties, required to follow when interacting with someone in their late sixties or beyond? Is there an etiquette? And if so, should there be? And what should it be? I agree that those who have lived long lives have done much to shape the world in which we now live. And I mean that in a good way, I am not a pessimist. I mean that I understand that there are people who have fought in wars, engaged in politics, engineered new technologies, and made all kinds of other efforts to make their future, our present, brighter and better for those who come after them. And I appreciate that immensely. But does all that, as meaningful and essential as it is, exempt them from common courtesy? Am I to feel like this man is my equal as another human with all the same rights and liberties as I have, or that he is my superior because he has lived longer and done more? I feel I owe those who are more advanced in years and experience my respect, in general. But how much respect do I owe someone who is treating me like I am not only thick in the head, but also intentionally rude and difficult? Goodness, what a conundrum. I want to be kind and respectful to people, and I almost always am, from what I can tell (of course I think I always am), but do I owe that to anybody? Or is it just something that I should do because I am compelled to do it? I think the latter.