Something short of Skynet

I have seen the future, and its name is Marty.

Before you start your usual presumptuous misgendering, be aware that Marty isn’t a “he.” Marty is a wheeled robot, about the size and shape of a grandfather clock with ears and a unibrow, that has been deployed in 325 Stop & Shop (and 172 Giant) supermarkets in the Northeast.

Its mission? To perform a job no human, no matter how intensive the training, could ever hope to do: holler for a mop when a shopper breaks a jar or bottle.

That’s right. Marty was designed to roam up and down supermarket aisles, looking for spills to report. When it finds one, it takes pictures and relays them to the store’s courtesy desk, prompting an emulated female voice to announce, for instance, “Cleanup in Aisle 8.”

Skynet, it isn’t.

Marty’s designers apparently ruled out making the robot resemble a person. Besides the potential to unsettle adults, a human-like droid on wheels would probably frighten small children half to death—resulting in, um, further spills.

But these august thinkers unfortunately went too far in the other direction.

For starters, Marty has googly eyes resembling how some Downton Abbey fans mercilessly describe poor Lady Edith. Then there’s the robot’s perpetual smile-shaped label, which, were Marty flesh and blood, would tempt most of us (me, anyway) to smack it upside its head till the smile faded.

To be fair, it was perhaps inevitable that these supermarkets’ staffers would resent a machine that, for all its electronic wizardry, merely advises that there’s a spill. Heaven forbid it deign to actually clean up the mess. It doesn’t help that in an age of increased automation, every pricey soldier sent forth in this 500-strong robot legion invariably means less money to pay staffers to work the mops. And Marty needs no sick days.

Elena, my wife, witnessed how adroitly Marty has made a lasting home in staffers’ hearts. The robot, it seems, had reported a spill in an aisle she was shopping one day. One young store employee was nearby, and he came upon the robot—and the “spill” it had urgently reported. “Oh, you’re riiight,” he said with a withering sneer, “there’s a coupon on the floor. Sixty thousand dollars to find a coupon!”

But Marty isn’t merely superfluous. Besides the myriad chips populating its circuit boards, there’s one more chip—on its shoulder. In short, it can be a real jerk.

I learned this two weeks ago while I was picking up a few items at our local Stop & Shop. Marty, dead ahead, was heading down the center of the aisle so slowly that I supposed it had wheeled over a puddle of molasses. Carrying only a basket that day, I had room to pass Marty on the left. But I wasn’t the one with the problem. That description belonged to a college-age stockwoman who was steering a platform truck stacked with boxes into the aisle, and saw ample room to pass on Marty’s other side. One glance told me she’d have just enough room to squeeze past.

She indeed would...but Marty had other ideas. I stared incredulously as the robot paused, then shifted right to effectively close the space and force the staffer to halt the cart and wait for Its Highness to pass. The way she rolled her eyes told me this wasn’t the first time.

Then there’s the reality that robots need maintenance, and if its sensors get somehow covered in, say, Nutella, it might not do its job as well. I suspect that giving Marty verbal warnings, with or without its union rep present, won’t be very effective.

Elena tells me, time and again, that I don’t need to take every crisis into my own hands. (Well, maybe she doesn’t, but she ought to.) After several times I’ve had to slow down because Little Lord Fauntlerobot has to go first, though, I’ve decided it’s time we had it out.

Margaret Atwood, the renowned military strategist, wrote that “War is what happens when language fails,” and she could have been talking about Marty. Any wheeled robot that doesn’t understand a basic, first-grade English command such as “Get out of my way, you insolent mishmosh of ineffectual detritus” needs a few teachable dents from a low-tech crowbar.

I don’t expect to lose against a machine with no arms, little wheels for feet and a ground speed of a quarter-mile an hour. It doesn’t even know how to call for help, so it should be a fair fight. I’m guessing that if I can flip the big galoot over, it will even learn its first word: “Mommmmmmy!”

But for all I know, it might actually have some sort of laser defenses. If I fail in my duty, I might not utter a cry. All the same, you’ll hear about it throughout the store.

“Cleanup in Aisle 5.”

And nobody’s kicking your seat

The airline industry’s future is up in the air, in more ways than one. People getting dragged down the aisle, being challenged to fistfights and suffering body-slams—and that’s just what happens to the employees. If you’re a passenger, your odds of reaching YouTube before your destination are greater than ever. And don’t even mention that poor rabbit.

You might be thinking it couldn’t get any worse…unless, for instance, the TSA’s website starts posting hi-def images of travelers’ full-body scans. But you would be wrong. As surprising as this might sound, the airlines have been taking notice of their customers’ dissatisfaction. And they’ve been putting the best technical minds money can buy toward, in their words, “reimagining air travel.”

Before you start shrugging about the return of the in-flight meal, leg room that accommodates human legs, and overhead compartments that actually holds reasonably sized carry-on baggage, stop right there. You are on the right track, though, in that the industry is looking toward the past for its embrace of the future.

How far into the past? Think Star Trek.

Any Trekkies reading this important news feature have already figured out where the industry is heading: teleportation. Haven’t heard of it? You have—in the form of “Beam me up, Scottie.” Scientists in the past few years learned how to do a full scan of an object, transmit it elsewhere and recreate it using a 3D printer. But that’s only for objects. The airline industry’s aim: to teleport you, your luggage and any carry-ons from one destination to another.

You get to avoid the TSA’s security gate, the wailing children in the waiting area, the incessant delays and everything else you hate about air travel. The airline saves on fuel, peanuts and attorney fees. What’s not to like?

Here’s what. It might look like a win-win, but remember what companies we’re dealing with. Leaked documents of a few airlines’ “Conditions of Carriage” offer a glimpse of what’s really in store—with quotes from the actual pilfered documents.

“Wardrobe malfunction” redefined. Teleportation sounds pretty spiffy, but it apparently has limitations to consider—especially if you plan to go directly to an important meeting from the airport. Take, for instance, this contract stipulation:

“Not responsible for mutations in clothing worn during transport that may result from our circuitry’s occasional inability to reconstruct snaps, straps, clasps, zippers and garments manufactured using complex fabrics such as polyester, elastic or rayon.”

That dress looks like you—oh, it is. Airlines promise to get you from one airport to another, but mutations in the clothes you’re wearing aren’t your greatest concern—especially if you’ve seen The Fly. In fact, since the very molecules that comprise you, your clothing and other belongings are dematerialized, transported and then reassembled, you can’t be absolutely sure that those distinct entities of human, clothes, cellphone, laptop and other personal effects will properly recompose:

“Passengers using the TPortTM system no longer need to remove shoes, belts, phones and other personal effects for TSA personnel. Prior to transport, however, passengers must sign a waiver indemnifying TPortTM and [this airline] from any amalgamation of clothing, electronics, and personal effects that might occur in the recomposition of items transported. Melding of personal items with passenger warrants a full refund and a coupon to be applied toward the first $100 of medical care.”

I’m doing what I do best, why? One benefit to bypassing traditional air travel is avoiding the myriad ads that bombard us in the waiting area, before takeoff and upon disembarking. But sorry, somebody has to pay for all this brilliant technology. “TeleSkyTM reserves the right to implant video and audio content into passengers’ cerebral cortexes during recomposition,” reads one policy.

Who cares if you get to your destination more quickly, right? It might get a bit annoying, though, when you can’t say the word “skies” without speaking the word “friendly” before it. At inopportune times, you might break out in song, specifically airline jingles. (Attend no further funerals.) Worst of all, you might repeatedly use the word “southwest” when giving directions, even if you intend the person you’re instructing to go the opposite way.

One of you was too many. Some smarty-pants passengers double-book—that is, reserving seats on two flights to a destination at similar times—and cancel one before the flights depart. Teleportation, though, could make things complicated for anyone inclined to game the system:

“In cases of multiple booking, no such last-minute shocks to our reservation system need occur. Our de-/rematerialization protocol enables us to duplicate a passenger’s molecular structure upon request. This enables us to teleport a single passenger more than once, in parallel, such as to fulfill conflicting engagements. We reserve the right to multiply fares in accordance with a given number of replications per passenger.”

You might soon be longing for a return to the way things were, but sorry—even the airlines couldn’t afford to keep up such service forever. Traveling by jet will eventually become as much a memory as the stagecoach, which shook up their passengers but still dropped them off in one piece.

One positive note is that you no longer need worry about lost luggage. In one form or another, it will arrive with you. Weren't you wishing for a new set of wheels?

Who says you can't count on sleeping?

Everyone I speak to lately is learning how I’ve resolved my long-time sleep problems. I relate in detail about my CPAP machine—short for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. I explain how sleep apnea closes the airway in the back of one’s throat. And I hold forth about how often the apnea was waking me up before I began to strap a snorkel-like mask to my face at bedtime, and how it hardly does now. The best part of these conversations: My CPAP’s benefits seem to be contagious. By the time I’m done, I’ve solved my listeners’ sleep problems, too.

You don’t need sleep issues, though, to agree that some nights you can just forget about getting some rest. Apnea sufferers keep score by the Apnea/Hypopnea Index, or AHI, which averages out how many times per hour they stop breathing and briefly awaken. Knowing your AHI is dandy if you’ve got apnea. But the many people who have trouble sleeping without any apnea should be allowed to keep score, too. After some careful thought, I’ve apparently caught the sleep-medicine community snoozing, for I’ve come up with sleep scores for everyone else.

DBI. If you have a dog, chances are you were a sucker for those doleful eyes from the first and only time they pleaded with you to say, “Come on up, boy.” And having allowed it once while the dog was 12 pounds, you now have an 80-pound anchor with bad breath and gas sandwiched between you and your spouse. The DBI, for Dog Breath Index, is how often per hour you come face-to-face with Rex and wake up from a royal blast of halitosis.

HCI. You don’t need a pet to keep track of your HCI: You just need to live with someone. Family members talk about all sorts of things in the course of the day, and if they’re all equally committed to good sleep, late-night conversation stays light. But if you think family life is that easy, you’re dreaming. The Heavy Conversation Index (HCI) measures how many of the first hours of bedtime you’re staring at the ceiling because one of you brought up something that couldn’t wait till morning, such as life, the universe and everything.

SDI. Most common in October’s run-up to Halloween, the Scary Dream Index (SDI) tracks how many times during the night you wake up in a cold sweat because you’re being chased by vampires, zombies, or something original plumbed from the depths of your very soul. If something’s after you, you’re not asleep and it’s not tax season, never mind trying to keep score…you won’t be sleeping anyway.

FIFI. Some adults, we hear, toss and turn in their nightlong quest to find that perfect sleep position. Unfortunately, that prime spot could mean the other person in the bed is out of luck. The Foot in Face Index (FIFI) counts how many times per night one sleep partner’s rotation in the bed means the other wakes up with toes up her nostrils.

PDII. Occurring for a few months every four years, the PDI might be the most pervasive. (It’s like MLBI, a score related to watching too much late-night baseball, but on steroids.) Whatever else you plan to do the night of a political debate, chances are that you’ll still end up in front of the TV and stay there till it’s over. Just try to fall asleep then. The PDII, for Post-Debate Incredulity Index, measures how many times you wake up from sleep, fists clenched, over something this one or that one said. Or should have said. Either way, just remember that you elected to watch the thing.

With only one score to keep, which the CPAP machine calculates for me, I’m sleeping just fine these days. Or at least I was sleeping. After years of needing to fall asleep using the traditional SCI (Sheep Counted Index), I now have myriad sheep grazing on the property with nothing to do. Some friends of ours wouldn’t sleep till they’d contacted the nearest government agency. They’d ensure that every member of the herd was counted—and would feel proud that it still mattered in the world.

Me? I lie awake, wondering where on earth we could ever find enough mint jelly.

Taking best practices to the next level

Thank you all for making time for this mandatory training session. Though many of you have served the company for many years, you can appreciate our imperative to optimize staffing, set success metrics and empower us all to build a culture of excellence and accountability. That much is abundantly clear, and I’m pleased to have your buy-in.

Now that you’ve settled down at your group tables, you’ll notice we’ve come up with a series of exercises designed to move the needle on aligning our core competencies. Table A, to my left, has coloring books, some blank paper, crayons and black markers. Table B has several sets of Colorforms. Table C, unattended for now, will be explained later. We’ve done our best to create capacity and mind space in the context of our corporate core values. Oh, a question? Yes, you there—thanks for reaching out. ‘What are those values,’ you ask? Let me take down your name…uh huh…we’ll deal with this offline. Begin, please…we expect 110 percent from everyone.

Well, now that you’ve had several minutes, I see that all of you at Table A are leveraging all available resources to accelerate innovation. Alas, we’re not sure that coloring within the lines demonstrates a sufficiently nimble reaction to the cultural zeitgeist. You, there, the one who has used a marker and a blank sheet to create a picture of your own. Why didn’t you color in the book? ‘There weren’t enough coloring books,’ you say? Well, you’ve clearly worked fluidly, efficiently, and agilely and are meant for something better—take your seat at Table C. But hmmm, this horned head you’ve drawn looks vaguely familiar.

Table B, Table B…yes, very nice Colorforms farmhouse scenes. You’ve achieved cross-functional alignment without getting into the weeds. But you—yes, you with the smirk—dispensed with the playboard altogether. I’m not sure I know what those animals are up to, but you’ve done even better than think outside the box. You also, take a seat at Table C.

A general word to all for a further measure of transparency: As a transformational company, we are committed to aligning and developing talent in a synergistic yet scalable way that maximizes social performance (you there, kindly put down that phone) and impacts the market beyond merely the low-hanging fruit of legacy strategies. But we can’t do this ourselves. Our doors are always open, and we encourage you to submit your idea for tomorrow’s robust application. We’ll talk that, run it up the flagpole and drill down.

That said, we have a hard stop at lunchtime, so I’ll make this short. You two at Table C, congratulations! Your training is complete: We’re creating two new management positions. For the rest of you, the next training session will complete your preparation for upcoming annual appraisals that we’ve updated for our aligned and data-driven organization. In other words, you’ll be evaluated based on the learnings we’re providing in this two-part program.

You’ve heard of the game “Chutes and Ladders”? Yes, we all played it as children. But business is what it is, so greater minds than ours have adapted the game for today. It’s a Corporate Edition we now call “Chutes and Dumpsters.” Yes, it gave me a chuckle, too. Innovation, advancement, progress—they’re what make America great. Now for refreshments…Kool-Aid, anyone?

Sorry, I’ve never riesled

He is always in black, which matches his long, flowing hair, goatee and baritone voice. In a ’70s horror flick, he would have played the coven’s high priest—one who does not understand the director’s order of Cuuuut! Or that he is acting in a movie. “But the sacrifice is not yet complete! It is Walpurgis Night!”

Today, he sells wine at my neighborhood liquor store.

His gaze is penetrating as he describes the personality of any wine, and he probably knows all the spirits, too. (They’re the tenured faculty of the Wiccan seminary.) And he is coldly serious as he holds forth about each wine’s complexity, acidity, aromas and other characteristics. I learned this after my wife, Elena, stopped in to ask him to recommend a wine we could serve with a given dish to company. For some reason I cannot fathom, she added this challenge: “My husband won’t be happy if I come home with the wrong wine.” She later reported that he began to stare. Very intently.

All of which meant that when she brought me to him, a few days later, his spigot was open all the way. “I find this one très elegante, a full-bodied bouquet of blackberry, cherry and currant, with an intense yet delicate aroma of oak.” As he spoke, one hand was gesturing; in the other, he seemed to be holding and staring wistfully into a glass of the stuff.

“Uh huh,” I said with a nod, trying to play along. Elena wasn’t doing much better, but she wasn’t the one granted the imprimatur of expertise.

“Or perhaps this Chianti, medium-bodied yet full-flavored,” he added as if recalling the company of a long-ago friend. “The delicate nose speaks of berry jam with floral hints and country nuances.”

I thought to ask how that worked anatomically but decided to take instead what, for me, was the high road. “Which one costs less?”

To the country-club set living all around us, he must seem a high priest of wine. The trouble is that such pretensions are wasted on the likes of me. I enjoy a good glass of wine, but if I wanted to pretend I knew the difference between Chablis and Riesling I’d have applied to work at Wine Enthusiast magazine, which is walking distance from the house. Mostly I make fun of the seriousness of it all and, now and then, pick some random wine myself just to see his expression.

And though I’d never act on it, I’ve been plotting to ask him, with all seriousness, whether a Merlot or a Pinot noir would go better with Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Or in what proportions I should mix red and white wine to make rosé. If I ever indulge this fantasy, I’d better have someone hold the door open: He’s certain to be a good shot with a dagger.

On days I truly feel too intimidated to meet his withering gaze, I remind myself I have an alternative. Even closer to home is another liquor store where I can pick up a wine of some vague hue without feeling I’ll say the wrong thing and end up manacled to a wall in the basement. So I haven’t exactly been worrying about the guy.

To tell the truth—for once—something came over me one day that I passed the store, on the way to the supermarket. I hadn’t realized I was habitually looking in to see if he was there, as if I believed I would one day spot him doing something completely out of character, such as laughing or doing anything whatsoever with a cellphone. He would invariably be there, whatever the day or time, as long as the liquor store was open. But this time I saw someone else. The next time, too. Was the high priest gone?

Whatever his name was, I realized I had misjudged this fellow and decided the world needed more people like him. If everyone felt such pride on the job and strove for excellence, the world would be a better place.

I was still wishing him a job as a sommelier at some exclusive Manhattan restaurant when I learned that he didn’t need a new job at all. My revelation came when we decided to drive to a local restaurant for dinner, and neither car would start—and not just because they’re old. Their distributor wires were missing.

Strung to the front door were a lifeless bird and a sprig of woodbine.

And under the door was an invitation. A limousine would soon arrive to take me, alone, to an unspecified event at our local cemetery. Since I would be guest of honor, I suspect I know who sent the invitation.

I daresay he’s taught me a bit about wine, but I guess I’ve taught him something, too. I’m no virginal, nubile female, the usual candidate for human sacrifice. But as with wine, sometimes anyone will do.

Check out my spare tire while you’re at it

Enjoying those long wait times in doctors’ waiting rooms? It’s looking like we’ll be some 90,000 doctors short by the time the last baby boomers skid toward retirement. But no worries: Soon we won’t need any doctors. Thanks to an uptick in laparoscopic surgery guided by people looking at computer screens, yet actually performed using robots, soon you won’t need a physician to operate or even do routine checkups. Nevertheless, you can’t have just anybody. So my vote goes to people with similar qualifications. Like Joe.

Joe is our mechanic, the guy who has kept two Toyotas running through the rough equivalent of 16 times around the earth. With such cred, he’s clearly meant for better things, which start with keeping two separate rag bins. What’s a physical but an inspection? Like any capable doctor, he’ll check that you start and idle properly, that you accelerate and cruise smoothly and work well in the clutch. By the time Joe is done, you’ll even run without jerkiness; he’s apparently a management consultant, too.

Take those creaky bones and sore muscles. To an orthopedist, they mean pain meds, cortisone shots, weeks of physical therapy and maybe surgery. Instead, we can call Joe the afternoon before and tell him the problem, which to him are a few hours and maybe new struts and shocks—suspension without the suspense. Spinal issues? It’s just another drive axle. “Come in by eight,” he says.

Digestive issues are no problem, either. Colon surgery, once a lengthy procedure requiring weeks of recovery, takes an afternoon—as long as he has the parts. The colon, of course, is mainly there to process the body’s waste products. “That’s a catalytic converter,” Joe tells me with a shrug. You’ll be happy to know he puts his rubber mallet to some good use before he fires up the welding torch. Hopefully, when you wake up you won’t roll over; you’ll be face-up on the lift.

And when the situation gets truly critical, such as heart surgery, Joe breaks out the lanolin hand cleaner. What’s a heart, after all, but a more elaborate internal-combustion engine? He’s done lots of valve jobs, and he’ll have your blood oxygen’s intake and exhaust as rhythmic as a Mazda Miata’s.

Unlike a doctor, Joe will charge nothing if we take in one of the cars for a perceived problem that turns out to need no attention. But when it comes to fixing people, it won’t long before insurance policies catch up—along with all those medical examiners. Repairs of all kinds, human or automotive, will require high-premium policies, thousand-dollar deductibles, and exclusions. And we’ll need weeks before an appointment, enough to blow your mind.

Not to worry, though. Joe replaces head gaskets, too.

Their just desserts

Today, I settle all family business. I steel my expression as I lace up my boots, the pair I wear only for certain work. I draw a long breath and close my home’s door behind me. The sun has risen; I’d better hurry. One last thought runs through my head: to cancel my plans and go back to bed. But I shake my head. I’ve a job. It’s what any red-blooded American would do.

My little Toyota wouldn’t do for my plans today, so I’ve rented a van. I needed one with a brand-new suspension and special racks in the rear, so I couldn’t get it from the likes of U-Haul. You can’t shake this kind of ammunition around much, you see. And maybe I’m overdoing it, but I specified a temperature-controlled vehicle. One wrong turn, after all, and someone would have a lot of cleanup.

Part of why I need to start off at dawn is to encounter certain people before they set out for the day—yes, it’s justice for the cheaters. My first stop is a roofer, right in town, whom we’d almost hired to clean algae off our roof with a spray cleaner that, it turned out, we could buy at Home Depot ourselves. To demonstrate, he’d sprayed some on a shingle and said we’d see the difference by morning. We didn’t. I get him as he’s loading his truck for the day, and the look on his face says he remembers me. He won’t forget this day.

Two others come next. One is a tile man we needed for a relatively mundane regrout and caulk job in the bathroom. The other, a chimney guy we needed for a cleaning and a chimney cap. Both had looked at their respective jobs at hand and said the same thing: “Ohhhhhhh, boooooyyyyy”—contractor-speak for “My kid is in college.” But I time my stops well and take both unawares, five miles apart, before their crews show up. There’s no mistaking what I have for them today, and next time they’ll know better. If there is a next time.

My next stop, naturally is the office. None of the security guards would ever suspect why I’m here today, on what’s supposed to be my day off. One even holds the door for me; I’m carrying a lot of weight, after all. Out of their sight, I don the full-face ski mask. I’m in luck, for my targets are all together in their usual conference room. The element of surprise, a few well-aimed shots and I’m done. One almost reaches the phone but doesn't make it. The stains might never come out.

A half-hour later I’m in Manhattan, where the first of the few remaining Presidential candidates is speaking. I can’t possibly get close; besides the crowd, there are Secret Service agents everywhere. Which is why I brought along my, um, “absentee ballot,” one you can’t get just anywhere. It’s a modern form of a medieval catapult, spring-loaded the same way but with a variable scope—and an effective half-mile range. I position the weapon slowly, precisely, and hit home on the first shot; I’ve seen American Sniper, after all. The crowd goes wild.

Ah, you’ve guessed that I’m merely indulging in one of my little fantasies, and I appreciate your patience. Have no fear, my feet are firmly planted in reality. After all, how could I possibly make, carry and deliver so many cream pies?

To sleep, perchance to scream

The very notion of a sleep clinic suggests a peaceful sanctuary, a sound-proofed facility with temperature and humidity control, a comfy bed, and absolutely no distractions—not even from the various professionals who would somehow, from behind the scenes, monitor my sleep. You might think of it as a hotel with the additional amenity of a sleep spa.

In your dreams.

As I recalled in my second visit to the sleep clinic, the only way to tell that I’m not sleeping properly is for someone to hook various electrical wires up to me. The attached machine records how I breathe, how often I wake up, roll over, play dead—oh sorry, that’s doggie obedience school—and collects other data.

Anyone who read about my previous overnight at the local sleep clinic would know I expected the worst. The same sleep center, last time around, seemed infested with Asian beetles. More orange than red, they’re as cute as the ladybugs they resemble but with a couple of minor differences: They’re larger, swarm by the thousands and prefer to raise their offspring indoors. Oh, and they bite—which did wonders for my anticipation of blissful sleep. At my last sleep study, I could hear their little feet on the lampshades and the acoustical tile of the ceiling. I didn’t see a single one this time. But just in case they planned to show up after lights out, I brought earplugs.

But of course, the noise wasn’t the greatest distraction. Neither were the two wide straps wrapped tightly around my torso. No, it was those wires, about twenty in all. Two pairs, attached to each leg, were barely noticeable. The rest? They led to my head, face and the vicinity, with electrical leads covered with a gob of conductive paste, which solidifies when pressed. Little pieces of bandage covered every gob so that I looked like I had been wearing an oversized deep-sea-diver helmet…with a ferret trapped inside.

All in all, there were enough wires tangled around my head that I resembled a male Medusa. I knew that if I had to use the bathroom, all I needed was to call out the technician’s name; hearing me on the intercom, he’d come to temporarily unplug the device to which the wires were connected. What I didn’t know was whether glancing at the mirror even once, in the bathroom, would turn me to stone.

Among other updates to the sleep center since my last visit was the mode of observation. My room last time had a window with two technicians behind, staring at me all night for my comfort. How times change. Now there’s an infrared camera that watches my every move—as if I could move given the attached imbroglio of wires. Since today’s remote cameras typically relay high-definition video to a smartphone or computer, I fully expect the video to emerge amid my 2024 run for President. “He uplinks to his Alpha Centurian masters at night!” my opponent will charge.

I was plainly too wired to sleep, so I thought I’d pretend I really were at a hotel. Three other patients—er, guests—were here tonight also, and the technician asked if I wanted water or fruit juice. (What, no cabernet?) So there was sort of room service. But the next morning, I found no complimentary breakfast. And while the bathroom had a towel or two, I found no little shampoos, soaps or moisturizers. Just wait till I hit TripAdvisor.

No matter what results I get, I already know my prognosis will be good. With two sleep-clinic visits under my belt, I know just how to go to sleep—and stay asleep till the morning. I merely have to remind myself how comfortable I feel when I’m not bound tightly in straps and wires, barely able to turn over, like at the sleep clinic. I’ll be afraid to open my eyes till dawn.

So where was I?

I was still five, on my first day of school, when one of the St. Michael’s nuns inadvertently gave my sense of self-worth, or whatever it was called in the ’60s, a good, hearty spin. Nervous as I was, I could at least take comfort that my new classmates hadn’t been here before either, since the school had no kindergarten. Then Sister spoke to a boy standing among us in the schoolyard. “Tom, show the others how to line up in the auditorium…like you did last year.”

Like he did last year?

My parents, I was distraught to conclude, should not have sent me last year to kindergarten at the nearby public school. I was supposed to have been here at St. Michael’s, lining up again and again in the auditorium like Tom. On Day One of eight years at this school, I was already in the dark.

It’s because of this early memory—that feeling of being denied prior knowledge—that today I feel unsettled to hear a certain word at the beginning of a sentence. The word is “So.”

Of course, starting a sentence with “So” could make perfect sense, such as when two friends meet after some time apart: “So what’s up with you these days?”

I also find it useful in my shrugging response to a co-worker’s question of why I have mounted someone onto a meat hook I just happened to find in the copier room: “So he can’t get down.”

Otherwise, it has grown into the 21st century’s de rigueur verbal tic, what many of us innocently say instead of “Ummmm” or “Wellll….”

As with those fillers, hearing an occasional “so” at the beginning of a sentence is no big deal. But in rabid use, when nothing prior has occurred to justify the use of the word, it can be exasperating. Take when I first noticed its practice, during a brief interview with a young guy at the iRobot booth of one recent Consumer Electronics Show. He was demonstrating a robotic vacuum that could be used as a hands-free wet mop for bare floors.

“Is the product available now?” I asked.

“So you can buy it starting today.”

“Is $600 its price in stores?”

“So it will cost $600.”

“Does that price include any of the cleaning solution?”

“So you get a bottle with the product.”

My first impulse, always my most genuine, was to grab him by the lapel and smack his face back and forth a few times. “What’s the word?” I’d demand.

“S-so….”

Smack smack smack. “What’s the word?” Watching gangster movies, you see, costs far less than journalism-school tuition—and is much more rewarding.

“Y-y-yes!”

For some reason, they didn’t send me back to CES this year.

By this point, I’m convinced that many people inappropriately start sentences that way for the sheer pleasure of it, a way of throwing others off and giving the false impression that they, too, were lining up in the St. Michael’s auditorium while the rest of us were wetting their pants in kindergarten. And for those people, it’s time for a little quid pro quo, to quote a movie character who would never unjustifiably start a sentence with “So,” making him okay in my book.

I propose, in fact, that everyone who’s incensed by this practice join with me in throwing these villains similarly off guard. Let’s say your waiter, postal clerk or returns-counter staffer greets you with words preceded by an incongruous “so”—something along the lines of “So I’m Quincy, and I’m your server.”

• “Consequently, I’ll have the tripe parmegian.”

• “Therefore, I would like to mail this anthrax Priority Mail with Return Receipt.”

• “On the other hand, I have to return this cobra.”

I myself have resolved this moment never to begin a sentence in an unsettling way, and there’s one way to break this habit. Are you with me? I’ll tell you how…um, as soon as I ask Tom.

As conspiracies go, it’s a stinker

Any one of us could count off a handful of conspiracy theories we’ve heard over past years, and it can be hard to keep them all straight. You know, like the myriad accusations of who put the Baab in the Al Shabaab Shabaab. With, of course, the related query of who put the Ram in the Ramadan-a-ding-dong.

I try not to give people who conjure up such fanciful notions very much encouragement. Other suspicions make much more sense—take, for example, the one about how the NSA won’t listen to your phone conversations if you imitate an accent sounding vaguely Mideastern. That’s why Elena and I have been careful about what we say aloud in our own home. It’s from the occasional visit of something resembling halyomorpha halys, a critter better known as the brown marmorated stink bug.

The real ones come from the vicinity of China, and they’re said to be a menace out in the garden. Their ugly little faces are outfitted with a natural straw they stick into fruits, vegetables and ornamentals to slurp up everything they’ve got. Indoors, though, they have no real purpose. They don’t bite, eat or reproduce. We don’t find many in the house, but when we do, they’re nearby— for instance, on the wall or curtain as we sit in the living room. Now and then one will take flight, buzzing around my head like a baby June bug, which is when it really gets annoying.

When we get one too many on a given day, I reassure Elena with the prospect that back in the Cretaceous Period, stink bugs were probably about six feet long and perhaps stood on their hind legs. Strangely, she doesn’t find this comforting.

That they have no reason whatsoever to be indoors, yet they occasionally come in, is all the evidence I need to attribute their entry to some entity with nefarious purposes, a.k.a. the government. Suppose the stink bugs that mysteriously make it inside the house only resemble those outside but are actually mobile listening devices? That deep buzz when one is flying could be its little motor, and the smell when you crush one is…need I say more?

I could have been convinced that I’ve been letting my imagination run away with me. That is, until I read about the Ehang 184 drone, which the Chinese (see?) manufacturer was showing at this month’s Consumer Electronic Show. Ehang calls it the world’s first autonomous flying taxi, large enough to carry one passenger, but I know better. It’s actually the Queen Stink Bug, which wirelessly issues orders to every presumptive halyomorpha halys that lands on your shoulder.

The company says the Ehang 184 runs on batteries. Still, I want a closer look, for every conspiracy requires the sniff test. Electric power or not, this giant drone has an exhaust somewhere.

You already know how it smells.

A germ of grievance

Read the news, and you can’t help but learn about the unrest at many college campuses over myriad offenses…some perfectly justified, some contrived. I can sympathize. There’s much to complain, after all, about an insular institution where the cost of room, board, and other essentials is borne by others, and most activities are set according to a schedule—oh wait, that’s jail.

But because protests at Yale, Princeton, and other top colleges seem trivial compared with, oh, ISIS chopping off Christians’ heads, the collective term for students’ beefs has come to be known as “microaggressions.” Oops! Even my use of the word “beefs” in the previous sentence could classify as microaggression to a vegetarian. Ah, for my salad days. (Better?) You should know you’re overdoing things when even the President says to grow up.

All this thought about everything I could never again say in once-casual conversation made me seek out one place I’d be safe: the living-room sofa. I would just lie down for a few minutes and clear my head. Soon after I did, though, I heard high-pitched, staccato sounds from the kitchen. Elena was working in the other room, so it wasn’t anything she was doing. Nobody else was home.

I couldn’t see anything, but the sound was coming from the trashcan. I opened it and saw nothing inside the liner but a sponge we’d tossed out. Picking up the sponge—from which the sound was coming—I put it close to my ear. Yep, that was it. I dropped the sponge back into the can, deciding that what I’d heard was the sound of air escaping from the sponge. Then I decided to wash my hands.

Once in the bathroom, I opened the vanity door to get another bar of soap. And heard the sound again, only louder. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded like the tiniest of people chanting something over and over. The sound came from near the can of scouring powder, the one with bleach. I grabbed a bar of soap, closed the little cabinet and washed my hands. But behind me, once I shut off the water, I heard the sound again. I opened the shower curtain and leaned in. This time, it was coming from a little shelf on which was a bottle of body wash. Anti-bacterial body wash. I could almost see what I was hearing.

It took a few minutes to find the old microscope from my elementary-school days, but before long I’d rubbed off some sort of specimen from around the base of the bottle. I prepped a slide, clipped it down, and look a good look:

You’d never guess that bacteria had language skills, but there they were on display. I still couldn’t make out what they were saying, let alone how they spoke at all. But their little signs—apparently ultra-nanofine markers exist—decried our various offenses, such as tossing a sponge, cleaning with bleach and committing the ultimate sin: murder by triclosan. By further adjusting the focus, I could read the largest signs. The spelling wasn’t perfect (whattaya want from one-celled organisms?), but the messages were clear:

NO MOORE EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE
STOPP THE COMET GENNOCIDE
ANTII BACTEERIA, ANTI LYFE

In other words, we multicellular imperialists needed to apologize, remove the hateful cleaning products from the premises and preserve their ancestry (formerly known as “icky kitchen sponges”) in the utensil drawer.

I had met the microaggressors, and they were us.

With a shake of my head, I realized that I’d fallen asleep, and all those little protests were but a dream. Still, I thought as I sat up, there was no point in taking chances. “Hey, Hon,” I called out to Elena. “Let’s eat out tonight. I’ve just the place! Chipotle’s….”

Baby it can drive your car

With all the recent news about self-driving cars, I’ve had trouble driving back and forth to work. Not because of my usual distraction of clipping my toenails while steering with my knees. It’s because the very notion of cars without humans in control terrifies me.

Not that I’m a Luddite. I can enjoy an online video about the things people behind the wheel of autonomous cars get to do, such as eat pizza, while the car makes all the tough decisions. Even the most mundane of new vehicles are getting GPS, adaptive cruise control, collision alerts, built-in cameras and other cool features, so we’ll be sharing the road with self-driving cars sooner than you might think. And at their best, these cars are said to operate more safely than we emotional wretches could possibly do.

But on a collision course (shameless cliché alert) with driverless cars is that the latest robots are becoming more self-aware—that is, they’re acting more like people, with all the ego issues and biases of their developers. In other words, self-driving cars will soon exceed humans at bringing out the worst of human behavior. Cases in point:

The parking-space predator. If you’ve ever parallel-parked, you’ve fallen victim. After you’ve pulled up beside the car parked in front of a space, you haven’t even begun to back up and swerve in when another driver swoops into the space, snatching it with glee. The challenge for people who steal spaces, though, is that they need an extra-long parking space to maneuver into without going up on the curb and hitting the hydrant. Clumsy humans. Due its superior steering control, a driverless car can slide right in without hitting the hydrant. And there’s no point yelling at the person behind the wheel; interrupt her conference call, and she’ll spill her cappuccino onto her lap and sue you.

Ready for my close-up. Good human drivers know how far back they should follow the car in front—the so-called three-second rule. (No, it’s not about waiting three seconds before flashing your brights.) The first autonomous cars have followed this rule, too, but all bets are off once you cut off a self-driving car that has sprouted an ego. Thanks to its built-in radar technology, you’ll get the unique experience of being tailgated from scant millimeters away. Don’t think twice; just get over. Better still, exit the highway till your heart rate goes back under 200.

You still there? New York drivers pride themselves on how quickly they’ll honk at the drivers in front the instant the light turns green. But self-driving cars will be even quicker studies, so the second time one approaches an intersection, it will have learned its traffic-light timing. That way, self-driving cars can self-honk at the driver in front .001 microsecond after the light turns green. Take that, New Yawkers.

Swearing they’re better. Humans can only holler so much at other drivers, and at so high a volume, before their throats dry up. After that point, they’d need to pause for a drink and listen to common sense—a.k.a. their wives. Driverless cars can use smart algorithmic tweaking of the car’s audio circuitry to drown out car horns as they shout their searing insults, such as the dreaded monotone “WHERE-DID-YOU-LEARN-TO-DRIVE-YOU-SPARK-PLUG-HEAD?” In autonomous car development, alas, writers are the last to be hired.

Such exchanges make sense only between robotic and human drivers. But eventually all vehicles will be driverless, and that’s when we’ll really learn what mankind has wrought. With the next generation of vehicles’ self-awareness will come even greater anger and indignation. Couple that with self-driving vehicles’ next-generation spatial precision, and we’ll have a roadful of cars that flit in and out of highway lanes faster than humanly possible, cutting one another off at speeds that would exceed the measurable speed range of the best police-radar sensors. And even if the police did pull a car over, it’s hard to know who gets the ticket. The car? Or the human curled up on the floor, sobbing for Mother?

You’ll have to start now if you want to reverse this trend in the bud. Just visit your local congressman. Politicians never return calls or emails—you only vote for them—so you’ll need to appear in person.

Just take public transportation. And be very, very careful should you need to cross the street.

With apologies to Wynken, Blynken and Nod

“If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” Mark Twain, of course, was talking about the weather. But if you enjoy coffee, eggs, wine, red meat and the occasional tuna sandwich, you know that the above witticism—in the reverse—applies to nearly everything you like. In other words, if you like a food, enjoy it without guilt…while you can.

We could blame the media for how every new medical study on a given topic concludes the exact opposite of whatever the previous study found. Whoever’s at fault, this notion has been keeping me awake nights—though I’m not sure it should. I’m wondering, you see, whether the traditional advice about how to get to sleep could itself be due for a flip of the medical-research spatula. With this in mind, here are a few tips we might expect to see should a new study reverse everything we already know about sleep:

Screens rule the day—all 24 hours. Doctors have long warned that staring into TVs, computers and various mobile doodads are a no-no at nighttime, and that we should shut them down early and relax before hitting the sack. The approaching new advice: Get the biggest TV you can get and watch it till your eyes slam shut—you wouldn’t want Samsung, after all, to waste the millions it spent to sponsor the latest sleep research. Better yet, install that TV on your bedroom ceiling and watch the same old reruns in style.

When the chips are down, break out the pretzels. We’ve been told that munching in the hours after dinner could result in trouble sleeping, but that’s before the coming research refutes all that. Tomorrow’s news flash: When your digestive system is working overtime, it lets the brain relax. At least you’ll hope you feel relaxed as you stare upward, wondering whether hiring the cheapest installer to secure the TV to the ceiling was your wisest move.

Exercise till you drop, if at all. Any sleep specialist will tell you not to exercise in the last hours before bedtime. But given tomorrow’s research, you can take that with a grain of salt. (What’s a little more salt after all those pretzels?) And besides, you’ll need to be in shape for all that vigorous tossing and turning, not to mention the thumb-muscle strength required to write texts all night to friends who’ve seen and followed the same research.

You can so make up all that sleep. And you’ve probably heard for years about how you should give yourself a good eight hours in bed per night, for lost sleep is lost for good. Sure…at least until the next studies publish. Next we’ll be catching a few winks here, a few winks there, and waking up just in time for the next office meeting. Or at least the end of it, when you awaken from the bright flashes of your colleagues’ smartphone cameras as they shoot video of your snooze. Ah, virality!

Worried that tomorrow’s sleep regimen is the stuff that nightmares are made of? Take heart. If you don’t like the research, just wait a few weeks.

Nothing of blue skies do I see

Once upon a time, companies serving the public seemed to care about their customers. At least, that’s the impression they tried to make. Anyone paying attention in the early ’80s, for example, might remember an ad campaign, by New York State’s Savings Banks Association, that featured a customer proclaiming, “I’m not a business…I’m a people.” A heartbeat later came two ascending notes of angel chorus, suggesting a blessing from above—you know, up past the clouds.

In today’s advertising, people don’t seem to matter for much. Maybe we shouldn’t have insisted on a bagel setting in those free toasters the banks were giving out? Either way, businesses don’t woo us for ourselves, just for the data on our computers. Yet the ads use the same heavenly metaphor, summed up in two words: “The Cloud.” The singing angels seem to have been sacked, but the term nevertheless suggests the same assurance the prayerful among us expect from above. A few examples from ads:

• “Cloud disaster recovery at your fingertips”
• “Own Less. Do More. That’s Cloud Power.”
• “Powering Innovation with the Cloud”

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what any of these slogans mean. I haven’t the faintest idea myself, and I suspect you’re not supposed to know. You’re supposed to see that word “Cloud” and imagine something on a par with angel chorus—though it’s only your wallet that sprouts wings. But this meaningless advertising isn’t just targeting businesses. Got photos and videos on your home computer? Apple’s iCloud suggests you keep them safe in “the cloud.” Ditto for all that digital music you have in iTunes.

No matter whose money corporate America is after, the underlying promise is the same: The Cloud is a massive network of computers with lots of storage for secure data protection and processing power for smart, real-time business decisions.

But wait just one minute. We’ve seen massive networks of computers before, and with the same grandiose security. In the movie War Games, a high-school kid unknowingly hacks into the military’s defense network. In Jurassic Park, a character who looks an awful lot like Newman from Seinfeld is able to shut down the network’s security functions so he can make off with a canful of dino-DNA. And in the Terminator series, a worldwide network called Skynet becomes self-aware and begins wiping humans off the planet. Do they mean computers like these?

What’s more, I myself have seen too many gangster movies. Once I’ve uploaded all of my photos and songs to the cloud—and cleared them from my computer—I fully expect the price for that cloud-based storage to rise…and rise. “Gee, that’s an awfully nice set a’ videos ya shot of little Emma and Ethan in the soif on dat Hilton Head vacation…you wouldn’t want anythin’ ta happen to dose precious memories, now, wouldja?”

Companies, of course, would defend themselves and say that it’s all about data security, smart analysis, innovative decision-making and more. But I know better. The closer the country’s six million companies get to starting up their own clouds, the shadier things are bound to look.

As for me, I’ll take my chances. I don’t need any company’s cloud to protect my data, thank you. I’m careful enough to make sure that file trouble never hap—

We know you’re home…pick up

Anyone who keeps up with the news—other than on pay TV—has probably heard that the pay-TV industry is losing customers in droves. How many droves exactly, no one will admit. But in the past six months, cable and satellite have lost 887,000 customers. Of course, say the pundits, we’ve gone on our laptops and tablets and phones (oh, my!) to watch programming there instead.

I, though, say they’re wrong. Elena and I have a source of programming that’s full of intrigue, deception and even suspense. And it’s as accessible as that most primitive of devices, our landline telephone.

Yes, it’s the Caller-ID box.

Around since the ’80s, Caller ID wasn’t invented to be a source of merriment. Earlier Caller-ID boxes showed only a phone number, usually fake, and you’d never have given a thought to sitting down with some fresh popcorn. But today’s ordinary Caller-ID boxes display a second line—for text—that keeps us at the edge of our seats. A few examples, with our responses, from calls that come in:

• “UNAVAILABLE”: What a coincidence! So are we.
• “Free VtRSRCH”: Oh, yes, we always pick up the phone when the caller’s name is gibberish. Just tack on the word “free."
• “PRIVATE CALL”: My mother’s maiden name was Call, but last I checked, no one from her side of the family is in the Army.

Of course, we also get the official-sounding ones:

• “Loan Department”: All loans made on this planet originate from the same very wealthy one-percenter, boss of a single department. Get him!
• “Bank Card Services”: Since you sound so legitimate, hold on while I get together all my credit-card numbers to give you.
• “Power Center”: I want to work there.

And then we get the scaremongers:

• “Alert Srvc”: With our frantic routines, we’re always on the lookout for the next chance to raise our blood pressure.
• “Help Center”: Yes, tell me where I left my hammer.
• “Your Appointment”: One of us, at any given time, must have some appointment scheduled with some doctor. So this must be genuine.
• “URGENT”: Of course, whenever I call someone in an emergency, my name on the phone number’s account always changes to “Urgent.” Would the caller’s name, in non-emergency situations, be “Trivial”?

And what about when the Caller-ID box merely displays the name of a state? With 50,000 Yankee fans chanting “Who’s your Daddy?” to then-Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez in 2004, we who were listening could tell what they were saying. But sometimes the box displays “Connecticut,” “Vermont” or (even worse) “California.” I’m imagining that all residents of that state—almost 39 million people, in the case of California—are dropping what they’re doing and gathering around a single telephone to call us and speak in unison.

It could be worse. What if China called? But if it were Mexico calling, we’d pick up. Other than the language barrier, we’d be listening to only a few dozen people; the rest seem to be elsewhere.

Given government’s incessant efforts to make our lives easier, I’m waiting for the next generation of Caller-ID boxes. Telemarketers will be required to stop giving phony names and numbers and start stating their true intentions. Landline customers, all ten of us, will need to buy new boxes with screens the size of an iPad’s. One sample message, displayed as the phone is ringing: “Marketing survey, for products you’d never buy in a million years, whose polltaker says takes only three minutes but will actually take 20…if you’re lucky.”

I’m going to hold out for the boxes with digital recording.

I suppose I will stand for it

All this arose from a single medical study that claimed, and I quote, that anyone who sits at a desk all day, even a fitness buff, is doomed. I believe I was sitting while I read about it. And even though one of my favorite movie lines is “You gotta die of something,” spoken by Sean Connery’s character Malone in The Untouchables, something sent a chill up my spine.

Which is why I have a standing desk.

It’s a cool Varidesk model, with dual levels and a width that allows for two monitors (one per eyeball) above and a keyboard beneath. My company bought a slew of them—or was it a slew and a half? And everyone who wants one gets one. The foresightful, like myself, never surrendered the old desk and chair; I sit down when I catch myself standing like a flamingo. Of the others, not necessarily fogies-in-training like myself, some have started suffering back or foot pains from standing all day. They went to their doctors. Who told them they’re doomed.

My first challenge, as a relatively early adopter of The Standing Desk, was that if I decided to sit down for a while, co-workers who happened by treated me like a clergyman caught looking for female companionship at the local red-light district. “You’re not standing,” one would notify me. His implication was that, having gotten the company to give me a standing desk for which they’d already paid, I was expected to show my gratitude by never again sitting down. For the remainder of my career.

If I seem less than grateful, it’s because I know what comes next. Once everyone at the company has a standing desk, next will come the treadmill desks, which already exist in a single room at my company’s headquarters. I’d be the last holdout—I tend to find myself pasted against the nearest wall whenever I use a treadmill—but these would be just one step toward the next goal: the [word(s)hamster-wheel desk.

I wish I could say they’d stop there, but oh no. First comes the hamster wheel. Next, one of the PTB (the Powers That Be, of course) would realize that such technology, just as with bicycle-powered generators , could produce enough electricity to power a seven-watt nightlight bulb. Next would come the requirement that we power, with our revolutionary wheeling, the lights, computers, and everything else in our office—or have our pay docked to make up the difference. Don’t even ask how they’d rig up the bathroom.

Fast-forward to a few years from now, when humans have gotten chips embedded into their brains and can work and communicate without the need for computers. Work, thanks to tomorrow’s node-to-node technology, will be done merely by putting our heads together, literally. (Talking? What’s that?) But given the many months of powering corporate America with hamster-wheel desks, power companies across the country will have gone out of business. And since employees could now do all their work without use of their arms, legs, and everything else besides their brains, human-generated electricity could reach its full potential. If we didn’t power the computers that upload thoughts to our embedded chips hourly, after all, how could we think?

Rather than individually powered hamster wheels of the past—so yesterday—management would now embrace the rowing-machine concept. Picture, for instance, pairs of staffers who work closely together. They’re communicating through their brainwaves—or, more likely, the embedded chips’ brainwaves. And while they’re doing all this communicating, each pair of workers would hold an oar-like pole and together push it forward, then pull it back, in a circular motion. And repeat. And repeat—is it 5 o’clock yet? At the other end of the oar-like poles would be whirring gears that, from all of this rowing activity, would drive the motors that power the building.

Of course, all this pushing and pulling by all these pairs of workers would have to be done in a certain rhythm, or else the lights would continuously flicker—and never mind what unsteady power would do to IT’s servers. So one manager would sit in a central location with no job other than to call cadence by pounding his drum. Others would stand over us, brandishing whips. We all have to do our part for the planet, after all. The best part? We could even sit while rowing.

Ah, technology. Ah, progress.

Bravely bold Sir Ed

Julia Child wrote her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, at 50. Momofuku Ando sold salt and even spent two years in jail before age 48, when he used his noodle to invent instant noodles and make a fortune with his company, Nissin Food Products. But while the rest of us tend to hit our stride once we hit middle age and go no higher, I’m one guy who’s not going to hit his stride lying down. Or something like that.

All this arose from an epiphany I experienced in that most tranquil of destinations. Okay, okay, it was Las Vegas, and I was one of more than 175,000 people who attended this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. I was rushing to a meeting through a morass of people I would swear paid for CES entry solely to plant themselves in front of people with someplace to go (a.k.a. me) when I looked up and glimpsed the sign. First one, then another. My eyes widened as I planted my feet in place. I eventually counted four people carrying tall poles with vertical signs held high above the throngs. They bore the name of an industry pundit, one Shelly Palmer.

I had no idea who Shelly Palmer was, being the sole attendee at CES who didn’t cover electronics. (Don’t ask.) I didn’t even know for certain he was a pundit until hours later, in the hotel room, when I saw him on TV talking about the significance of the day’s CES announcements. (Don’t tell. What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas.) But from his simple presence heralded by sign-carrying flunkies, something told me: This person matters.

Yes, I’ve seen this sort of thing before. So have you if you have a pulse and lived through the ’70s. Who could forget Sir Robin, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who went everywhere with minstrels who would sing his praises? Of course, the lyrics invariably took an uncomplimentary turn. (“When danger reared its ugly head / He bravely turned his tail and fled.”) But hey—the minstrels must have been underpaid members of SHRE local 381. Songsters of the Holy Roman Empire, natch.

These days, though, you probably don’t have to pay much more than minimum wage to get competent sign carriers to wave your banner for all to see, even if you’re just taking the trash out to the curb. Even faster than those noodles, your flunkies-for-hire would proclaim you instant someone.

For me, that’s the ticket. In a world where a Kim Kardashian could become famous merely by pretending to be someone famous, why couldn’t I put my name on everyone’s lips by mere suggestion? In time, I’d need to hire a publicist; I hear Mariah Carey’s is available. And before you know it, I too would have my own reality show and be set for life. Maybe something like Keeping Up with the Perratores. Creative, huh? It’s better, at least, than 2 Kids and No Longer Counting.

I know what you’re thinking, and it’s probably something to do with flying pigs or snowballs in hell. You might be right.

But there’s more chance of my getting a reality show than of my publishing my latest cookbook, The Real Poop on Rustling Up French Grub.

Because absolutely everything relies on you

Election Day seems right around the corner, and if you’re like most of us, you’re paying no attention whatsoever to what’s actually going on. But some people are rooting for certain trusted candidates to win their elections. If you’re among them, I have some news for you: You’re doing absolutely nothing productive for your candidate. Ask any sports fan.

Oh, I can hear you already. “But I’ve donated money!” “I put a bumper sticker on my car!” “I…I….”

Save your breath, for you’ve been wasting your efforts. Allow me, if you will, a little latitude to demonstrate what I mean.

For starters, you might recall that I’m a Met fan in a Yankee household. The Mets don’t get much play in our house, not because I get outvoted but because I’m no masochist. As a result, the Yankees are on TV an awful lot. So while I tend to avoid my own team, I seem to have played an important role in the Yankees’ having reached the postseason 15 of the past 16 years. And this one, too.

Here’s how I apparently do it. At the simplest level, it begins while my wife, Elena, is watching a game. Let’s say the Yankees are losing, with the opposing pitcher making them look pretty lame. I happen to walk into the room, and moments later a Yankee gets a home run. Well, I didn’t really have any plans for the rest of the game, did I? If so, I’d better just forget about them. Because my very step into the room initiated a sequence of events in the universe that resulted in the batter’s seeing the coming pitch in a wholly different way—and blasting it to the next county. So whatever else I was planning, I’m no longer allowed to leave the room to do it. What kind of husband ignores his wife’s pleas?

My actions, though, seem to represent only one of a host of variables. (I’ll thank you not to ask how many are in a host.) If it isn’t Elena or myself, it’s someone else, maybe across the country, who’s pulling the strings of a given game. It’s someone standing—or sitting. It’s sitting in a certain chair. Legs straight down or crossed. Looking up at the TV or not. Eating the proper snacks, and using the correct hand. And wearing the right hat, jacket, socks and shoes. The list goes on and on. But when everything fits together just so, it’s nothing less than an aligning of the stars.

Now let’s get your candidate into the postseason. Granted, politics is not a game, so eating the right brand of chips alone might not do the trick. For maximum effect, attend a speech; watching it online might not do. You can sense the mood of the crowd; the candidate is scoring points, or he’s not. If he isn’t, you yourself are obviously doing something wrong—you doofus. Bring every hat you own; try them on one at a time and gauge the change in the crowd’s applause. And pray you bought the right shoes, whether or not they still fit.

If nothing happens, it must be because you attended the speech. So walk away. Come to think of it, perhaps it isn’t just about you. Here’s where your leadership qualities come in. If your being there or not makes no difference in how well a speech is being received, it’s possible that everyone in the audience needs to randomly walk in and out of the meeting hall, or at least change seats, until the correct permutation is achieved. Don’t worry: From the length of some speeches, you’ll have plenty of time to experiment.

Of course, it’s also possible that everyone was seated in exactly the right place to begin with…but that one of them needs to be wearing your hat. Pass out those hats, then, with everyone in the audience trying them on until the level of excitement reaches fever pitch. True, chances are they'll sport some nice, thriving colonies of parasitic insects by the time you get them back. But with the country’s future at stake, better that than a lousy candidate. Are you in to win or what?

The Higgs Boson and what really needs finding

Let me apologize in advance for interrupting your musings over important matters—you know, things like why J.Lo and Steven Tyler have left American Idol and what their exit means for the future of mankind. But the scientific community recently celebrated an important breakthrough. Sure, the Higgs Boson can’t compete with even the watered-down, post-Simonic remnant of that show. But what its discovery represents is hope for us all.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, let me tell you what the Higgs Boson is. I don’t know. And I’m in good company. Journalists are already champions at writing their stories before doing their research. Who has time for facts? In the case of the Higgs Boson, though, they had to make the effort to do more than sound smart. Still, the resulting attempts at the subject had poor Peter Higgs, the Boson’s namesake, rolling in his grave. Which was a pretty mean feat considering that Higgs is still alive.

So being a true journalist, I’m going to break from tradition and look out for you instead of my editor. In other words, forget about what the Higgs Boson is. That it’s the smallest particle now known to man, what gives everything on earth its mass, doesn’t matter to you. Or to me. Let’s instead do a search for…all those socks.

Yes, you heard me right, socks. It shouldn’t take a $10-billion particle accelerator to find what seemingly travels to another dimension—or perhaps, since the voyage of these garments begins in a washing machine, to a planet orbiting the luminous Energy Star. Yet you can’t sort laundry after a wash without noticing at least one sock is gone.

In our house, socks are only the warm-up act. True, the TV’s remote hasn’t dissolved into particles since the kids hit middle school. And it’s hardly high technology to phone a misplaced cell phone to listen for its ring, except that before losing my phone I pride myself in turning it off. But Elena’s glasses? Our keys? My credit-card bills, which sit plainly in view for weeks till it comes time for me to pay them?

The scientists found the Higgs Boson using a machine called the Large Hadron Collider, which sounds like a shopping cart that strikes fear in the heart of anyone who parks his shiny new car, a Porsche Hadron, outside the supermarket. If it takes one of these to find all the things that get lost in this house, I want one for Christmas. It shouldn’t cost much now that it’s used. And because physicists are finished using it to find the Higgs Boson, it’s just going to sit around, right?

What most needs finding around here, though, is the result of a certifiable good deed. A friend of son Andrew was, for a time, selling Cutco Cutlery. Sure, they’re fine products, but they’re very expensive. And when you’ve been married for 25-plus years without throwing knives at one another even once, you still have the ones you got a quarter-century ago. So we ordered a few things, including a pair of pruners.

They’re great pruners. The 18-year-old sales rep said they’ll last for years. They will, too. Wouldn’t you agree, since they’re wrapped up carefully in the box they came in? Sure, I know exactly where they are—in that little box. Just don’t ask me where that box is.

The Higgs Boson might tell us how keys, glasses, bills and even those pruners have mass. But someday, I’ll discover where all these things are. When I do, I will be lauded the world over. I can already envision, in fact, the day I go to Oslo to accept my Nobel Prize. My name will be called, and I will stride up the aisle to thunderous applause.

The ordinarily reserved crowd in the seats will be all abuzz. So much so that after I receive my award and all those cameras and phones start clicking away, the award’s presenter will announce that, however unusual, he’d like to ask me a question before I step any farther from the stage.

“Would you kindly tell us why you have a sock stuck to your back?”

They’ll just have to throw the book at me

I’ve come to a painful decision, and my answer is no. If you’ve been following this year’s national elections, you know it’s a very divided race. Giving both sides their deference, it’s a contest between shameless power and shameless wealth. Since I have neither, I was the obvious happy medium—or so insisted my candidacy’s myriad supporters on Facebook.

We all know, after all, how thoroughly a potential candidate’s every past moment is sure to be prospected. Somewhere in all that gold, there has to be some mud. So, with a heavy heart, I spare my supporters further disappointment and, while I’m at it, put legions of fiction writers out of work. If anyone is going to reveal my sordid past, it’s going to be me.

First, let me get the obvious one out of the way and admit it. I’m sorry, yes, I did kick my mother. Repeatedly. I did it while she was in a weakened state, and I thought nothing of it.

What the media won’t reveal, no matter how extensive their coverage, is one important detail: I was in her womb.

Which brings us to the other one, and I might as well give you the press version first—especially since I think the statute of limitations has run out. In short, I was a burglar. I entered a college campus with the sole intention of breaking into a building for the purpose of theft. And once I found the building unguarded, I smashed my way in with tools I’d purchased over the Internet. I found what I was looking for in its metal casing and snatched it. Within minutes I was miles away with the spoils of my crime, plotting my next caper.

I would have had to be an evil genius to purchase burglary tools over the Internet in 1980. But that isn’t the only way that what you would have read differs from what actually happened, and here’s the scoop. I did not enter the college campus with the sole intention of breaking into a building; that came later. It was a weekend, and I was in the middle of finals. I needed access into a building, I explained in detail to my college’s security guard in charge, and asked as reasonably as possible to be allowed in for a few moments.

Public servant that he was, his salary paid by my CUNY tuition and resident income tax, he gave the expected answer: No. “Come back on Monday,” he said. But I had more finals then, I explained, and needed what I needed today. He threw up his hands.

Soon after, I found myself sitting on the steps of a classroom building, casing another that was a few hundred feet away. It was one of several single-story temporary buildings Queens College had at the time—no air conditioning—and I was guessing at least one window had been left open. But a college-security sedan idled just outside the building…five minutes, then ten. Maybe the guard had gotten a warning call on his radio?

Eventually the guard drove off. I waited till he was out of sight and walked slowly past the little building. With a glance over my shoulder, I ran to its side. The window I needed was locked, but another wasn’t. I shoved it open and fell into the room. I listened for company, the only sound my heavy breathing. There was no time to lose! I ran from the room, down the hall and into the room I needed: the classroom where I’d had a final exam the day before. I looked under the desk where I’d sat—nothing. I looked toward the front of the room. Yes

In the trashcan was my multi-subject notebook, which I’d left behind the day before. Presuming I’d return to the car without being apprehended, I would soon resume studying for Monday’s tests.

So there you have the real story, and I have back my private life. No more campaigning, no more worries. And besides, even if the statute of limitations hadn’t run out, I could hardly be charged for burglary and theft in a building that didn’t exist anymore. Right?

But excuse me, someone’s at the door. A few people. And what are those bright flashing lights outside? Hmmm…on second thought, considering the charges, maybe I’m back in the race after all—for Congress.