One Way Ticket

I now know that there is a God and he is a vindictive SOB who has targeted me by making sure that every attempt to navigate through this labor-saving-efficient technological world is thwarted at every turn. Like trying to migrate my information from one computer to another that even had my computer expert scratching his head as he hit some 25 dead-ends (conservative estimate) and met each one with, “Okay. Let’s try this.” 25 times! And at the end, some progress, but far from finished. We meet again today for the next round of knockout punches.

 

Then trying to do the simple thing of teaching 10 music classes to kids for five days at a dance summer camp. That requires four different forms, a tb test, a livescan fingerprint, a 75 minute Sexual Harassment training and another thing that I had to join with a password that stopped working halfway through and won’t go on. I told them to find someone else to teach and they suggested I come in (on my own time) for them to walk me through it. 

 

Then the book printer who always sends me books to dealers and sends me the invoice now informing me that their new system requires I have a UPS account. So I went to the local store and they said, “You have to do that online.” NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! 

 

So I began that process this morning, another freaking password and of course, halfway through, the whole thing stopped. So I called the 800 number and got the cheery computer “How can I help you?” voice with two options— 1) Sending a package/ 2) Tracking a package. Neither, of course, which I want. So I start screaming “Agent! Agent!”  and the cheery voice says, “I know you want to speak to a customer service representative but I can’t help you until you choose one of the options that you actually don’t want.” (Last five words mine)

 

On Friday, I leave for Ghana for two weeks of making music with people who live in their actual physical bodies, where kids roam freely playing games with each other, where people sit down and talk and laugh and joke and then sing and dance and drum, often for three hours at a time. A place I first went to in 1999 without any pre-made arrangements and when I met someone playing an instrument and asked if they could teach me, they said without hesitation, “Meet me under the tree tomorrow.” I did, we played, I paid with physical money and it was a simple as that. 

 

It feels like this last month or so has been a geometrical increase in those damn driverless cars circling around and the simplest acts of arranging something become an obstacle course through the 12 Gates of the Techno City, with many doors slamming in my face and not a human being in sight to hear my calls for help or open the doors. What the hell is going on here?!!!!!!

 

After two weeks of life as humans are meant to live it, not sure I can return to this dystopia. Maybe I'll just sell my return ticket and live out the remaining years in Ghana, away from machine culture. Stay tuned.