NONFICTION  -
​    A New Day        

"Press 5 if you have forgotten the first four options,"                                      
Photo by Weebly.com                                    

---

It's a New Day
by  Mickey Eliason

​I hate that cliché, especially when I’m struggling with new technologies. Inevitably, someone says in a cheerful, lilting voice, “It’s a new day.” It’s so obvious. Of course it’s a new day. Every day is a new day. Why don’t people say what’s really so? Things are changing rapidly and it’s hard to keep up with all the changes in how we do business in this world. And new isn’t always better, right? Remember the new Coke? Granny glasses? Leisure suits?
 
When you were 15, could you have imagined the frustration of automated phone systems where you are yelling at some bot when it doesn’t recognize your voice or gives you confusing options? “Press 1 if you are a new customer, press 2 if you are an existing customer and have platinum status, press 3 if you are an existing gold ribbon customer, press 4 if you don’t think you are a customer or know your status, press 5 if you have forgotten the first four options and need to have the choices repeated, press 6 if you are totally frustrated and want to scream . . .”
 
Could you have imagined starting your car before you even got in it? Or having your car parallel park for you? Being able to shout from any corner of your house, “Siri, play The Indigo Girls” and having strains of “Closer to Fine” fill the air without having to root through a shelf of LPs, cassette tapes, or CDs, depending on the era?
 
I remember when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa and went on a tour to see the first computer. It was behind a glass window in a 12 by 12-foot room, a big machine with buttons, whirling dials, and flashing lights. Now I carry a way more powerful computer in my pocket every day.
 
Once we carried cash that we got handed to us from a real live bank teller. We went shopping at a real store for most of our goods. We typed our letters and manuscripts on a clunky old typewriter. When the phone rang, we had to answer it to find out who was calling, not to mention, be at home to be reached by phone. When we took a road trip, we had to learn to read and how to refold the accordion paper maps so that we could stuff them back into the glove box.
 
Many of these new day changes have been great and have simplified our world, but the new and improved often comes with some hiccups, a learning curve, and often some unexpected side effects. I like to think of myself as being pretty hip and cool with the new-fangled gadgets and apps, but sometimes they perplex me. Sometimes they break my heart. Here’s two examples of new day technologies that puzzled, annoyed, or thrilled me in the past few years.

---

1

---

---

Ode to Rosie

Ah, Rosie. I’m grieving her loss today. I have been reminiscing about our early days together. They were so full of ease and joy. We had eight wondrous years of domestic bliss before everything fell apart. Our relationship started when I saw a picture of Rosie online, and was smitten by her unique looks. Then I read her profile. She had a passion for cleaning and I had an abhorrence for all household tasks. We were a match made in heaven. So I bought a mail-order bride: one of the earliest models of robot vacuum cleaners, the Roomba. I named her after my favorite childhood cartoon—the Jetsons had a robot maid named Rosie.
 
Our early days were idyllic. Rosie was far more diligent than I had ever been at cleaning, and would happily roam around my little apartment for forty-five minutes while I reclined reading a book or binging Netflix on my laptop. She boldly went places I never went, like under the bed. When she was done vacuuming, Rosie quietly returned to her charging station and plugged herself in to ready herself for the next work session. She was reliable and self-sufficient, never complaining about the dust bunnies under the sofa. She was very quiet, although on rare occasions she spoke to me. A disembodied voice emanated from another room: “Move Roomba, move Roomba” until I got up to retrieve Rosie when she got stuck, usually trying to go under the media cabinet. She was just trying to please me. All I had to do was empty her dust bin once in a while and sometimes unravel a thread from my worn carpet that got tangled around one of her brushes. Rosie was an easy-going companion. She made no demands on me. We cohabitated peacefully for several years. But alas, robot vacuum years are numbered like a dog’s lifespan and Rosie aged faster than me.
 
One day when she was just over seven human years old, and perimenopausal in robot years, I noticed that she was becoming moody and contrary. She refused to clean the bathroom floor. I had to pick her up and place her in the bathroom to get her to work. Then, she avoided both the bathroom and the kitchen. One day I realized that she was no longer capable of going over the half inch threshold into those rooms. Well, I had trouble getting over obstacles those days, too. I tripped over ridges in the sidewalk that were even smaller than the thresholds. We weren’t getting any younger, so I overlooked her signs of aging, in denial that she might be in decline. 

---

2

---

---

​Soon she started running out of energy and had to return to the charger after only twenty minutes, then ten minutes. She started following me around the apartment. If I worked on the laptop, she would amble under the table and thump against my feet. If I went to the bathroom, she bumped against the threshold to get my attention. She was becoming needy. In the next few months, she became forgetful, and only vacuumed one small area of the living room, going around and around in a circle. I had to nudge her with my foot to get her to broaden her path and vacuum the rest of the room.
 
One fateful day I pressed her ON button and she went to the middle of the living room and spun in a circle about ten times before her battery went dead. I gently carried her to her charging station. The next time I pushed her ON button, she meandered to the nearest corner and bumped against the wall helplessly for two minutes before her battery expired.
 
Clearly, it was time to retire Rosie. Her mental and physical capacities were fast deteriorating, but I loved her. What does one do with a demented vacuum cleaner? There are no homes, no hospice programs, no palliative care or memory units for old appliances. Rosie wasn’t dead yet, but she lacked the vibrancy and efficiency of her youth and had few memory cells left.
 
I replaced her with a conventional vacuum, a rebound relationship. It’s been five years now and I still look longingly under my desk where her charging station used to live. I still grieve her loss, and my apartment is not nearly as clean as it was under her loving care. I guess it’s time to give up pining for Rosie. I know it won’t be the same, but maybe it’s time to go online and find a new romance.

---

3

---

Are You Talking to Me?  

---

​I’m furiously writing a scene for my romance novel while shoveling corned beef hash into my mouth in the back corner booth at Mel’s Diner. The old-fashioned juke box is rocking to the strains of Elvis singing about that hound dog. My phone both vibrates and pings on the table in front of me to announce that I have a new text. I hate interruptions when I’m in the flow of writing and curse not putting the phone on silence. I glance at the screen. “Ready to do laundry?” reads the message. What the hell is this, I wonder, and pick up the phone to look closer. Who sent me this odd message? It isn’t from a person, but from a shorter sequence of digits than a phone number, nothing I recognize. Some scammer or troll, I surmise and go back to my writing.
 
The next day, I’m on a hike in the woods. Again my phone notifies me of a new text, and this time it’s, “Washer #2 is available.” What? That’s strange. Is it some twisted stranger with a laundry fetish trying to entice me into tantalizing conversation about dirty underwear? I have a vivid memory of the man who worked at the laundromat I went to in college. He liked to help me take my clothes out of the dryer so he could fondle the socks. “Ooh, argyle,” he moaned one day. I go on with my hike and forget about it.
 
Another time, I’m in Santa Barbara, on a weekend visit with a sibling. In the afternoon as we stroll on the waterfront, another message comes from the same sender, “Don’t forget to buy laundry soap.” I’m resentful of this intrusion during my vacation. Who wants to think about laundry at the beach?
 
A few days after this third message, I investigate the source of the texts more closely. I discover that the messages are not a text at all, but are coming from an app on my phone that just looks like a text. Oh, yeah, I remember. It’s a new day—there’s an app for just about everything. About a month ago, my apartment building adopted a new laundry system. No more hoarding of quarters to plunk one at a time into the machine—I needed 13 of them for one wash/dry cycle. I generally do two loads at a time, since there are two washers in my building, and I had to carry so many quarters that sometimes I had to grip the waistband with one hand, to keep those stretched out sweatpants on from the weight of all the coins in my pocket.

---

4

---

---

​Now we could pay via an app on the phone. There’s a lot of good in this system. I can see if the machines are available before I drag laundry down four flights of stairs. I get a notification when the wash or dry cycle is done, so I don’t forget my clothes in the washer overnight and have to re-wash them the next day because they got mildew-y. Best of all, there’s no more sagging pants, no longer a mug full of quarters on my desk, and no more cursing because I don’t have enough quarters to do laundry.
 
But these random text-like messages between uses? I don’t like those. I barely like getting texts from friends. Texts feel intrusive, like they demand an immediate response. Their curt messages feel rude and impersonal. I never chose to have a relationship with my washing machine—nor did it ask me if I wanted to get messages about laundry. Uninvited messages seem aggressive. So far the messages have been benign, but with all the warnings about artificial intelligence, I’m afraid that my laundry app might get snarky or sarcastic with me one day because I ignore the messages. What if the app starts criticizing me, “You didn’t separate the bright colors from the darks! Aren’t those clothes way out of style? You’re wearing a lot of sweatpants these days.”
 
Or even more apocalyptically, what if like in the movie Terminator, the app becomes smarter and more diabolical? Will I end up enslaved in a sweatshop of dirty clothes for my remaining days? Chained to the laundry table matching and folding socks? Just another bit of fuel for the laundry Matrix?
 
So far, the texts have been one-way. I don’t reply or respond. It’s not a conversation. But if I get irritated enough, one day I might snap and begin to argue with the texts. “No, I don’t want to do laundry today—you can’t make me. I don’t care if Dryer #3 is free, I have a life.” These unwanted texts trigger my rebellious nature and I’m beginning to hate this app. Am I turning into an old fogy who hates new technology? Will I eventually be forced to move just to get rid of the laundry app?

---

5

Vertical Divider

​​Mickey Eliason is a recently retired faculty member from San Francisco State University with a background in nursing, psychology, and public health. She harkens originally from Iowa and spent twenty-five years on faculty at the University of Iowa. She was propelled to San Francisco in 2005 by a midlife crisis, and transitioned from land-locked stoic midwestern to California beach bum. After a lifetime of academic writing, she is experimenting with different writing genres, but mostly to creative nonfiction. She has self-published two volumes of humor writing: a parody of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual outlining unique lesbian pathologies (The Dyke Dykignostic Manual) and short stories written recently (Pandemic Procrastination and Ponderings). Both are available on Amazon.

Vertical Divider

We Welcome Comments