I was in a public restroom today.
Awkward. We just met and you already know I go to the bathroom. But stay with me a minute.
I was in a restroom standing in front of a motion sensored hand dryer which wasn't turning on. This made it necessary for me to use The Force (think Obi Wan Kenobi "These are not the droids you are looking for.") in an attempt to start up the stubborn thing. I would have been self conscious about my Jedi mind tricks except that the woman beside me was doing the same thing, although with far less pizzazz than I.
And it kind of overwhelmed me in that moment that our world is becoming touchless.
That bathroom, for example. The sink had a sensor, the soap dispenser automatically dispensed, the garbage can lid magically floated open and then closed again. As for the touchless toilet flush? Let's just say I would like to decide for myself when I'm finished, thankyouverymuch.
Our car is aggressively helpful. As we drove to the grocery store last night, every time my husband mentioned my brother's name the car started to call him. We wanted to talk about him, not talk to him. We ended up hanging up on him about five times.
From our living room sofa we can change the house temperature, start up the vacuum, and choose a movie. We ask questions into the air and a disembodied voice answers them. We no longer need to stand up, walk to the door and peek through the front blinds to see if we want to pretend we're not home. Our doorbell shows us who's there.
If typing is too taxing simply talk into your phone and it will generate the text. Let me pause here and share a life hack: when using talk-to-text, proofread before you hit send. Talk-to-text is to blame for when I informed my dad that "Uncle Boob died." But in my defense, I have a Minnesota accent. And Uncle Bob was kind of a boob.
I promised myself I wouldn't mention the pandemic but... sigh... the pandemic. Now our touchless world is touchless-on-crack. "Contactless" is a badge of honor. I was peeking through my front blinds the last time we ordered "contactless delivery" pizza. The guy was wearing gloves to hold the pizza boxes, rang the doorbell, and nearly ran back to his car. It was like a sanctioned version of Ding Dong Doorbell Ditch.
On a loosely related note, I spend an inordinate amount of time peeking through my front blinds. We all go a little mad sometimes.
Shopping has become more touchless than ever. I have always been an Amazon addict, but now I can go to any store and not have to go in. Curbside is a beautiful thing. Not to mention Doordash. Grubhub. Uber Eats. Shipt. Instacart. Amazon Fresh. I admit I love them all.
And we are now touchless with each other. We have to be. We have an immediate concern of surviving this virus. High fives and hand shakes are frowned upon. Hugs have been out of the question. Stay on your dot in the check out line. The amount of apologies deemed necessary if we accidentally get too close to someone is almost alarming.
Everyone I know agrees there will be long lasting psychological effects from experiencing this pandemic. There's no way around it. We have been living in fear. We are grieving our friends. We are grieving our normal. We're never sure what's coming next. Masks block us from seeing people's faces. Strategies for physical distancing and reducing shared contact surfaces can almost make us feel leprous. In our already touchless world, now plagued by the plague, we have hit a new level of isolation.
Hope is on the horizon, however. It seems our world is slowly starting to spin again. Medicine is catching up. It's going to be safer and safer. I still stand on my dot in line. But I am ready for the some of the touchlessness to end. I need to see a smile. I want my children to be less fearful. I've never been the one to hug a stranger at Target, but I really want to hug my dad.
So I'm okay with automatic vacuums, helpful cars, and magic garbage cans. We can even keep the bully toilet flushers. But I pray that we get closer and closer to a world that can move closer and closer to each other again. And when we get there, come see me. I'll give you a hug. After all, we're friends now. Because you already know I go to the bathroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment