Unplugged

I'm amused and disturbed by the way new technology makes people unhappy when they don't get it. A few decades ago people got upset about technological intrusion when Pendle Hill put phone lines in the dorm rooms, but now people get all malcontent if they can't have free wireless. The other night some of us were sharing about how our days had been, and one man said meditatively, "I'm feeling really disconnected from . . ." I expected this sentence to end with "my family" or "the people around me" or some such thing. But no, it was "wireless internet in my room. There are so many things I feel I'm missing out on."

This morning my kitchen helper didn't show up to his job at all, and when I saw him at lunch I asked him what happened. "I'm so sorry," he said, "I slept in until eleven. I was up all night trying to get the wireless in my room to work." Tip: don't tell this to the woman who no longer has a computer of any kind and who got up before dawn to cook the breakfast you didn't eat.