Can I Get an Herb For That?

But first, an excerpt (hope I don’t get sued):

Now I began to experience a tendency in the West that perhaps I am too old to accept. It is the principle of do it yourself. At breakfast, a toaster is on your table. You make your own toast. When I drove into one of these gems of comfort and convenience, registered, and was shown to my comfortable room after paying in advance, of course, that was the end of any contact with the management. There were no waiters, no bell boys. The chambermaids crept in and out invisibly. If I wanted ice, there was a machine near the office. I got my own ice, my own papers. Everything was convenient, centrally located, and lonesome. I lived in the utmost luxury. Other guests came and went silently. If one confronted them with “Good evening,” they looked a little confused and then responded, “Good evening.” It seemed to me that they looked at me for a place to insert a coin.

~Travels With Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck 1962

Do you guys ever feel like we are doing these human interactions wrong? I mean, we are sort of deleting the humans, and when I ask a deleted human to help me do a thing, they get mad at me. Like John Steinbeck, I look around and think No, no, no, this is all wrong, terribly wrong. I have been operating under a theory that aliens have taken over our world by quietly replacing people. They have the same bodies but they are aliens inside. This explains why not as many people can be nice anymore. I mean, do aliens care about returning their grocery carts to the stall or throwing their trash in the bin? No. They have bigger plans. They are trying to take over the world. This theory was born at 2 a.m., so I’m not saying it’s genius or even true, but I’m just saying, what if?

For my birthday, I got a gift card for my favorite coffee shop, and when it was time to pay for my latte, I didn’t know how to use it. It used to be, you would order your thing and hand the gift card to the employee of the place. Now you scan it yourself or something. It’s the or something that was causing me problems. I had the options of putting the card in a slot, scanning a QR code, or swiping. I would have asked for help but the human was gone. I mean, she was making my drink so, yay, but still, I was weighing my options by myself. Swiping is very pre- 2018, so I ruled that out. The slot seemed wrong because there was no shiny dealio on the card (don’t judge). I opted for scanning, but that didn’t work. I was now moving this card up and down over the machine like an idiot, searching for a QR code and feeling very alone. I was happy to have the gift card, but now I was less happy because I felt dumb. I had never had a gift card from this place before, so I was essentially new to this coffee shop job.

Do you guys ever feel dumb when you go places? Scan your stuff, enter amount, make sure you put your items IN THE BAGGING AREA, insert card, DON’T REMOVE CARD, REMOVE CARD! It’s all so confrontational. In this case, I actually apologized to the person who worked at the coffee shop. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to pay with my gift card.” Why was I apologizing? Because I didn’t know how to do the job I wasn’t trained for and don’t get paid for. I mean, this is wrong, right? But I also love this coffee shop, so I don’t want to lose my shit here and hence my visitation priveleges.

At the airport, you use the kiosk to check your bags now, which is fine except for the 5-foot-long sticker that prints out from the machine. If you don’t attach this to your bag correctly, your luggage is in danger. Because I wanted my luggage to go to San Diego with me, not on a solo trip to St. Louis or something, I worked hard to get that thing on properly. When we went to the counter, we asked the person who works there to help us attach one of the stickers, because we removed part of it, and then it got stuck to itself (fuck!) and us (double fuck!). But the lady looked at us like we asked her to help us clean out our entire garage and just told us, *deep sigh* “The directions are on the back.” I wanted to tell her, “I have the flu and my brother just died, so I’m about to punch you in the throat if you don’t help us with this vital sticker because these bags contain funeral clothes you asshole.” Phew. I didn’t say it.

We recently bought chairs at Lazyboy. Those people are really nice when you are thinking about buying chairs. “Yes, you qualify for 36 months interest-free financing.” But then to get the financing, you have to apply by yourself later, away from the furniture store, at home. The website didn’t work until I tried seven times. Then it said, click here to agree to 29% interest rate. Umm, fucking what? I called the lady who sold us the chairs. Turns out, she didn’t know me anymore. She sure used my name a lot when she was initially talking to me about the chairs, but whatever. I decided to go in to the Lazyboy store again. The guy who worked there was sitting at the computer, scrolling through his phone. I told him that I couldn’t get the financing to be the as-promised interest-free on the website and asked for help. He looked at me like I was one hundred years old, and said, “Do you have a phone?” Yes… geez. I’m not crazy. I held my phone up to prove it, and he sent me a link to the website, so I could DO IT MYSELF IN FRONT OF HIM. I guess it was time for my training. I sat down, ready to learn a new job. I got all of our information into the website, and it said, not responding. I showed it to him, like, see? This whole thing is dumb. He sighed and sat at his computer. He began typing and I thought to myself, finally, someone is going to hook up the interest-free shit as promised. He then turned the computer screen towards me, handed me the keyboard, and told me to fill out the application. I heard myself say, “I guess I’ll just do your job for you then. I need the mouse.” Oops.

I’m at a dangerous age. I didn’t run that sentence through any sort of filtering system before it escaped my mouth, and that’s what worries me. I went to the doctor for my annual physical this week, and when she asked me what concerns I had, I said, “I need an herb or something because everyone is bothering me.” She was wearing a mask but I could see her eyes smiling. I continued, “Maybe I am premenopausal but I am angry at everyone and all the people are annoying. Do you have any suggestions for that? Like, I don’t want a prescription, but ya, just something herbal would be good because the common denominator here is me.” She gave me an informative essay titled something like, Menopause and You, and on the top she wrote estrovin and black cohosh, and I am certain these miracle meds will help. I’ll report back on the magic herbs that will make me like everyone more, until I myself am taken over by aliens. Unless it has already happened?

Here is a list of all the awesome books I have read so far in 2023:

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin (I laughed out loud on a plane like a crazy person, so many times)

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (This guy does dialogue better than anyone)

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers (very interesting part of history)

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins (loved the ending)

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom (so good but of course sad. People’s capacity for love and hate is wonderful and terrible)

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy (such a sweet love story)

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (a reread, but I love this one)

Life After Life by Raymond Moody (I think I needed some comfort around grief. Check.)

Currently reading:

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (recommended by Tommy)

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix (Are you kidding me with this guy? His stuff is so fun. I loved My Best Friend’s Exorcism)