I love a good movie. Who doesn’t, right?

Tight scripts, groundbreaking cinematography, unforgettable actors bringing their characters to life for our amusement. What a time to be alive. We, as grown adults with all the responsibilities and obligations of this life, get to switch off our entire thinking apparatus and just play pretend for a couple hours.

I’m a pretty big fan of playing pretend. For example, I write these little stories and pretend I’m entertaining. If not for my highly developed pretending abilities, you all might be out there doing something truly productive instead of reading this, like curing cancer, or building a bird house, or running a for-hire cuddling business. (It’s like prostitution… but for lonely dudes who just need a cuddle.)

No judgment here, I put mayonnaise on my spaghetti. It’s delicious and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees with me in an open field. Preferably at sundown for dramatic effect.

But more importantly, I recently watched the film, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” directed by Gore Verbinski. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Sam Rockwell really crushes it. The whole thing is wild as hell in a hilarious, unhinged kind of way. I won’t attempt to critique the film with any sort of expertise; I’m no movie critic. Just know that technology and artificial intelligence are essential elements of the movie.

So, why am I starting this post with a long-winded ramble about movies and questionable spaghetti toppings?

Because a couple of spots in the aforementioned movie where people are staring into their phone screens like zombies hit too close to home and reminded me of a very important moment that needs to be shared. A story about…

My mother-in-law.

I know, I know. Don’t poke the bear. A story about my in-law sounds a lot like some famous last words. Don’t worry, friends, my wife has given me permission to share this glorious moment with you. Also, my mother-in-law doesn’t speak English, except for:

“Hello!” and “Good job!” and “I like it!”

Now, as you may know, one of America’s crowning achievements, an indelible mark that our society will leave in the historical record for eons to come, is the epitome of authentic Italian cuisine known as: The Olive Garden. Even the name strikes deep into your soul. Olives. Gardens.

I can’t think of anything more irredeemably Italian than that.

Pasta, bread, cheese. The pitchers of fruity sangria concoction that I would double-fist with reckless abandon if my lovely wife would allow such festivities. You want some salad? Have a giant awkwardly shaped glass bowl of the shit. A gnocchi soup that could only have been created by a mutant-crossover combination of Gordon Ramsay and Emeril Lagasse? Absolutely.

(I will replicate this recipe at home if it’s the last thing I do, I swear it on my ancestors.)

The place is truly a paradise of carbs and debauchery.

But the best part? The cheese grater…

You know the moment.

The waiter brings you the food and then commences a ritual of the utmost importance. The sacred words passed down for generations. Blood has been spilled over these holiest of incantations. Their utterance cannot be denied.

“Say when.”

A well-adjusted person enjoys this moment for what it is. The friendly waiter grinding away happily as cheese piles up on a steaming pile of noodles. A socially aware individual might smile and nod, before eventually responding with something like, “That’s good, thanks!”

Not my mother-in-law. Not even close.

For some frame of reference here, it’s important to mention some things about my dearest in-law. She’s a wonderful woman, truly. She invites me into her home and family. She makes some verifiably kickass black beans. She’s hilarious and full of life. Despite what I’m about to say, she really is great.

But, Christ on a retarded donkey, that woman is addicted to her phone. She’s interacting with some form of social media almost perpetually. Last time we checked, her daily screen time was somewhere around 16 hours. Let that sink in for a moment. Two thirds of a complete solar revolution.

Every. Single. Day.

So, when it came time to enjoy a nice family outing at our local Olive Garden, my wife and I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. An obscene number of selfies, total disregard for normal dinner conversation expectations, and a general lack of situational awareness. What we did not expect, was our waiter to go postal with the cheese grating.

Picture it, Tyler, the 20-year-old Olive Garden waiter who sees this shit every day. He approaches our group with a tray of food. He expertly positions our entrées across the table like those creepy hot chocolate serving bastards from The Polar Express, minus the dancing, of course, Olive Garden has a strict no dancing policy for the staff. Tragic, I know.

Cheese for me? Well, sure!

Cheese for my wife? Just a little, please!

Cheese for my distracted mother-in-law?

Silence.

He looks at her eyes, glazed over as her fingers swipe and tap. An awkward silence ensues for a brief moment.

He looks at me. Our eyes lock. A silent understanding occurs. He knows it. I know it.

I nod.

He starts grinding. A frantic excitement overtakes him. His moment has come. Retribution for the social injustice he’s endured. A man possessed by the spirit of every overworked server in the history of mankind. His thirst for cheesy vengeance cannot be quenched. The queso must flow…

Moments that seem like an eternity pass. My wife shakes her head. The hilarity undeniable. I watch with glee as Tyler goes absolutely gangbusters on this unsuspecting plate of tortellini.

But then! Disaster!

Tyler’s resolve begins to falter. The mound of cheese is fast becoming insurmountable. His eyes plead with mine. Surely, she’ll tell him to stop.

More cheese.

Surely now.

More cheese.

Any second.

More cheese.

Sweet merciful God.

As panic begins to rise in the back of Tyler’s young mind, my dear mother-in-law looks up. Her snap back to reality is immediate. She lets out an “Ayy!” and finally releases Tyler from his cheese grating captivity.

His mission accomplished, I salute him and send him on his way. His tip will be excessive. Well done, sir.

But why did my wife and I allow this travesty of a cheese smothering to occur?

Well, mostly because we thought it was hilarious. But also, deep down inside, past the responsibility we might feel to correct or justify the behaviors of our friends and family, there’s a small piece of us that’s had enough. In fact, I think that sentiment is somewhere in most of us.

We’ve had enough of the vapid and depressing alternate reality of social media. We’ve had enough of all the dumb shit that spews out of the algorithmic hellhole of Instagram or TikTok. We want to live in the moment. We want to enjoy life, in the real world. Not plugged in, with our focus and attention being sucked ever deeper into that terrifying pit of despair and self-loathing inherent in these apps. We enjoy taking a picture as much as the next person, sure. But we keep those pictures to remember the parts of our lives that we cherish. We don’t plaster them as far and wide as we can across the internet. Definitely not a shitty selfie with a cringey filter, taken in a random Olive Garden. There’s a bald dude in the booth behind you blowing his nose for god’s sake.

My hope for you and everyone you know, is that you don’t go through life, staring into the electronic void while the cheese inundates something that could be a splendid meal. Don’t smile and nod, pretending everything is OK once you realize just how much fucking cheese you’ve allowed to pile up while you were distracted.

Because some of us are living life to the fullest, and we’re definitely laughing while your food gets ruined.

Thanks for reading.

I’m still a little surprised that people actually want to read these things, but I’m grateful for every subscriber, comment, and share.

If you’d like to follow along, feel free to subscribe.

See you in the next one.

Deferred Maintenance is fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and gin, not necessarily in that order. If you’d like to encourage these questionable life choices, you can throw a few bucks in the tip jar here:

https://ko-fi.com/deferredmaintenance

I’ve got a confession to make. I’m here to take your money.

Not here with this publication, although I wouldn’t complain about that. No, I’m not expecting people to pay me for my ramblings. In fact, the only paid subscriber I’ve got is my father. Embarrassing and heartwarming all at the same time. He’s a real cool guy, but the feeling is similar to your parents cheering you on when you piss your pants on stage during your 4^th grade musical.

Good job, sport! You can do it, buddy!

I’m talking about my day job. My real job. Shudder with me, folks… My 9 to 5.

Automotive service advisor.

Sounds cool, right? Sounds like somebody who knows their stuff. Almost sounds like somebody who likes cars and everything about car culture. Sorry gang, that ain’t me. I don’t even like cars that much. Sure, I can appreciate a classic as much as the next guy, but I’m not going home to drink Miller Lite in my garage full of tools and muscle car calendars.

I do, however, possess a wealth of knowledge about different vehicles, common repairs, maintenance schedules, and all the other fun stuff that goes along with the world of automotive repair. Industry professional over here. Got my big boy pants on and everything.

Now, some of you might immediately think of the shady dude at the dealership service department that tries to sell you a $90 air filter. We all know the type. He’s got stupid hair, a just barely too tight shirt, and always recommends more flushes than a truck stop toilet. He tells you all about how the manufacturer recommends these things, his dipshit ear piercing glistening like a fucking Aladdin character. Gross.

I like to do things differently. At my shop, I don’t lie to my customers. I don’t trick them into bullshit repairs to pad my wallet. If you bring me a rusted-out bucket of junk, I’m going to tell you just as much. Professionally, of course, but sometimes people need to be protected from their own terrible financial decisions.

The trick to this job, the secret sauce, if you will, isn’t my devilish charms or my eloquent verbosity. No, no.

It’s honesty and clarity.

Let’s be real. Most people, excluding the Miller Lite-drinking car bros, have no idea what to do with their cars. They put the key in and drive. They assume their oil change interval is a loose guideline, as opposed to the easiest way to avoid major repairs. They buy Jeep Wranglers and expect them to be reliable vehicles. (If I have to look at one more stupid rubber duck, I’m going to freak out, I swear to sweet Americanized Baby Jesus…)

In short, they’re car morons.

Here’s where the honesty and clarity thing comes in. I’ve presented inspection reports to customers that have so many red marks on them it looks like a murder scene, only to have them decline all repairs. People buy parts off Amazon made by kids in Chinese sweatshops surrounded by suicide nets and then wonder why they don’t work properly. I’ve explained catastrophic engine failure to customers and received responses like, “Can I still drive it?”

No, Lisa, you sure fucking can’t. You have a rod protruding from your engine block.

But this isn’t because these people are unintelligent. Actually, most of my customers are smart, well-adjusted, and functional members of society. Except for Larry, he’s kind of like a meth-head dwarf from Peter Jackson’s beloved films, The Lord of the Rings. But many of them are doctors, teachers, lawyers, or engineers. These people know things. They can solve complex problems and keep the gears of the world turning. Their brains just tend to collapse in on themselves like an interstellar anomaly when the topic of car maintenance is brought up.

What’s worse, that ridiculous excuse for a frat-bro at the dealership has given me and all my people a bad name. Our reputations have been tarnished by the shady practices of others. Independent shops are often grouped together into this misconception of con men, rip-off artists, and grifters. The shade-tree hillbilly types condensing a 16-hour job into an afternoon for 200 bucks and some beer don’t help either. And no, your brother-in-law who watched some YouTube and failed his small engines class in high school is not a “mechanic,” let’s have some self-respect here, people.

What my shop, and many others all across the country, offer is something I like to think of as “the way business should be done.” My team of technicians has well over 100 years of combined experience. They’re certified. They’re continuously learning and growing. We send them to seminars and workshops. We’ve got somebody enrolled in additional night classes for advanced training pretty much all the time. We utilize the latest technology. Scan-tools that cost thousands of dollars apiece. Equipment that can handle virtually every type of repair or maintenance you can think of. Alignment rack. Tire balancer. A/C machine. The list goes on.

You have any idea how much an alignment machine costs? It’s a hell of a lot more than 200 bucks and a case of beer.

When I charge you $150 an hour for labor and refuse to let you bring in your own parts, it’s not because me and my crew are chortling in the back and railing lines of cocaine off the hood of your car like some sort of automotive kingpins. Expertise costs money. Running a shop costs money. And setting our prices low enough to compete with some asshole named Terry who wants to put the wrong size used tires on your grandma’s minivan is entrepreneurial suicide.

My job is convincing you to spend your money. The technicians work out the recommended repair; I present it to you in a way you can understand. Do I want you to spend your money on things like air filters and transmission flushes? Absolutely. Because I’ve seen firsthand the effects of proper maintenance on the longevity of automobiles. I’ve seen people like Mark rack up half a million miles on the family van, and I’ve seen young adults blow up their 2-year-old SUVs (looking at you, 2.4-liter engine from General Motors) because nobody ever taught them the importance of having their oil changed.

So please, find a reputable and family-owned repair shop. Build a relationship with the owner and the service advisors. Leave a Red Bull in your car for the technician with a funny note. Whatever you must do to avoid those unscrupulous other guys out there. But, most importantly, once you’ve found that place. Once you’ve found your shop. Trust them. I promise the good guys want what’s best for you and your car.

Sure, I want your money, but truthfully, I want you to love your car. I want your vehicle to take you and your family wherever you want, safely and reliably. I want my industry to be respected and appreciated for the valuable service we provide. And please, Jeep people, enough with the ridiculous ducks. I just can’t take it anymore…

Thanks for reading.

I’m still a little surprised that people actually want to read these things, but I’m grateful for every subscriber, comment, and share.

If you’d like to follow along, feel free to subscribe.

See you in the next one.

Deferred Maintenance is fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and gin, not necessarily in that order. If you’d like to encourage these questionable life choices, you can throw a few bucks in the tip jar here:

https://ko-fi.com/deferredmaintenance

Let’s talk about the American Dream.

The land of opportunity! Soaring skyscrapers! Vibrant natural wonders!

All the technological marvels and comforts of one of the most developed countries on the planet. We can click a button on our smartphone and have just about whatever random junk we desire delivered to our door.

You want a jet ski?

Click.

Organic cat food sourced from the finest agricultural science?

Click.

A crate of literal deceased piglets for a class of biology students to dissect?

You get the picture...

Here in America, we’ve got it all. Assuming, of course, you’ve got the cash.

But what would it be like to enter into this absurd, fast-casual, highly digitized reality we live in if you were born and raised in a different place? What if the place you were born and raised in was the kind of place where the grocery store shelves were usually close to empty? Where the electricity randomly came and went just like my ex-wife? Where people carry around “fake” phones to surrender to the inevitable street muggers?

What if you came from Venezuela?

Like my wife’s cousin Juangis. A man forged in the fires of a Latin American country that routinely has some of the highest levels of crime, poverty, and societal breakdown in the western hemisphere. With his carefully hoarded bitcoin stash completely spent on his plane ticket and not a dime to his name, he arrived into the suburban sprawl of the Midwest without a clue last year.

Now, my lovely wife is also from Venezuela. Aside from being incredibly beautiful and awesome, she’s also smart as hell. Speaks two languages. Incredible work ethic. Capable and determined. She’s got it all.

Stay away. I called dibs.

Juangis, however…

Well, those genetics must have branched off somewhere else entirely… Having spent his adolescent years living a sheltered life with minimal social interaction and looking like a Latino Harry Potter, Juangis was not prepared for the assault on his mind and body of the American experience.

Our first stop, with Juangis fresh off the airplane, and with my wife having a panic attack because he sat around in the terminal for 30 minutes wondering which way to the exit, was to get him an exceedingly American cheeseburger.

Now, if you’ve never experienced a Venezuelan Hamburguesa, they’re pretty awesome. Tons of meat and cheese, piled high in a downright comical display about 8 inches tall, but even that culinary monstrosity can’t compare to a good old fashioned American cheeseburger. Good effort, Venezuela, but burgers are a national pastime up here. Juangis had never experienced anything so magical in his entire life.

America! Fuck yeah!

We spent those first few weeks doing our best to get Juangis acclimated to American life as best we could. Explaining to him that certain functions of our society work as intended was an enlightening experience.

Yes, the postal service not only exists, but does a pretty good job!

Yes, car insurance companies function normally and will definitely catch you if you try to defraud them.

Yes, the electricity stays on all the time.

No, you don’t have to worry, the same type of meat will be available next week at the grocery store.

No, it’s extremely unlikely that we get robbed in broad daylight walking downtown.

No, you don’t have to worry about your employer refusing to pay you, that’s straight up illegal my dude…

But despite his rapid acclimation to our American lifestyle, there were still some learning curves to deal with. The amount of times I’ve had to rub my temples and sigh deeply about some truly retarded shit seems to have quadrupled in Juangis’ presence. The language barrier surely doesn’t help either. I love the guy, but God damn the wonders never cease.

I once witnessed Juangis attempt to take his shoes off going through security at a nightclub. My wife was so embarrassed that I thought for sure I’d become a widow right there on the spot.

Juangis almost burned the house down once because the idea of a takeout food container not being able to withstand the convection power of the air fryer didn’t seem to cross his mind.

Spilled something on the carpet? No problem for Juangis! This random bottle of cleaner we can’t read? Must surely be for carpets. Too bad for my floor that it was fucking bleach.

Now, friends, I could spend a great deal of time recounting all the different stories of Juangis blundering his way through America, but that’s not what this is about. What’s become abundantly clear to me watching this process unfold isn’t as simple as “Haha, look at this guy make a fool of himself!”

No. I share these fun snapshots with you all to illustrate an important point that I think we often forget.

Things function properly here in America.

Scroll through your feed or browse around the internet and you might assume our entire society is on the verge of some Mad Max-cannibal-holocaust shit, but that’s simply not the case.

I can write you a letter, drop it in the mail, and it’ll undoubtedly arrive at the correct destination. I can pick up my phone and call the police to report a crime, at which point uniformed officers will attempt to uphold the law without asking for a bribe. I can turn on my water faucet and have clean, potable water come rushing out, no need to have a water truck fill up the holding tanks on the side of my house, which was probably constructed with zero building regulations of any kind.

We take for granted the things we experience every day. Our world looks scary and messed up because most of us lack perspective. Sure, we’ve all got problems. Our country and our world have problems. But the next time you feel like the world is ending, take a deep breath, appreciate the infrastructure all around you, the functional economy, the technological advancements, the happiness to be found in this confusing mess.

And if you see a dude who looks like Hispanic Harry Potter driving ten under the speed limit, give Juangis a wave, he’s still learning how the traffic laws work…

Thanks for reading.

I’m still a little surprised that people actually want to read these things, but I’m grateful for every subscriber, comment, and share.

If you’d like to follow along, feel free to subscribe.

See you in the next one.

Deferred Maintenance is fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and gin, not necessarily in that order. If you'd like to encourage these questionable life choices, you can throw a few bucks in the tip jar here:

https://ko-fi.com/deferredmaintenance

I’d like to tell you about Mark.

However, before we get to that, let’s talk about frugality. Most of us make some kind of frugal decision every day. We skip the coffee shop and grab a cup at home. We buy the cheaper option of something in the grocery store. We only pay for the subscriptions we feel like we truly need.

Others have no idea where all their money goes and live in a constant state of financial catastrophe. Such is the American way.

Being frugal is often mentioned as a pathway to financial freedom. Self-help gurus tell us all about how to maximize our dollars. Entire subreddits exist to celebrate the penny pinching tips put forth by their members, or mercilessly shame those who opt to buy some fast food instead of cooking from home.

You can pry this Culver’s double bacon cheeseburger from my cold dead hands, you lunatics…

But few people will get the chance in their life to meet someone like Mark.

For those who don’t know, my day job is being an automotive service advisor at a reputable, family-owned shop. I translate the information around what a car needs for repairs and maintenance to my customers in a friendly and accessible manner. Part of my job is acting as a buffer of sorts between regular customers and the greasy vulgarity of the technicians in the back.

Experts in their field; but often embarrassing in public.

Enter Mark. A regular customer at the shop for over a decade, but with a few quirks. Most importantly, Mark takes the idea of frugality to the extreme. His previous vehicle, a 92 Mitsubishi Mirage, made it well past 300k miles. If not for the vehicle literally rusting away and exposing his feet to the pavement all Flintstones style, he’d definitely still be driving it around today.

Everything we recommend to Mark is carefully analyzed and price checked. His automotive repair diligence is on par with high level Wall Street risk assessments of credit default swaps in developing markets.

Where his dollars are concerned, Mark does not fuck around.

Which brings us to the story of Mark’s 400,000-mile Honda Odyssey.

Despite the engineering prowess of the wonderful folks at Honda, every vehicle eventually wears down. Gaskets wear out and fluids leak, parts degrade over time, and components simply give up. There’s only so much heat, vibration, and usage that a vehicle can sustain before repairs must be made.

Although Mark had spent considerable sums of money over the years repairing and maintaining his fine specimen of an automobile, there came a day where the engine had finally had enough. Consuming oil at the rate of a large scale Middle Eastern conflict and rattling like a homeless guy’s shopping cart, I presented Mark with the uncomfortable reality.

She was done. All used up. Straight up tuckered out.

I did some quick math. Mark’s minivan had driven around the Earth a little bit more than 16 times. He could have driven the distance to the Moon, turned around, and almost made it back home.

Incredible.

Now, typically in a situation like this I like to inform my customers of their options. Where they can scrap the vehicle for the best price. How long they might have before catastrophic failure. Immediate safety issues, that sort of thing. Their response is usually a mixture of sadness and resignation. Most rational people see it coming.

Mark decided it was time for a new engine.

I don’t presume to know the inner workings of my customers’ minds. I just do my best to guide people through the process of keeping their vehicles on the road. But in this instance, my thoughts went to what sort of incredible discoveries might be found by dissecting this guy’s brain. What madness could compel this man to dump thousands of dollars into a vehicle with the value of an Xbox?

Turns out, Mark had done his own math. Detailed receipts of all the maintenance and repairs performed on the vehicle over the last decade. He knew every single component and when they had been replaced, down to the exact day of the month.

Part numbers. Manufacturer information. Applicable warranties. Expected life remaining before next service.

His folder of information looked like a detective's corkboard from a serial killer movie, strings connecting the dots and everything. In his mind, Mark was about to be ten thousand dollars out of pocket, but twenty thousand dollars ahead of the sucker who goes out to buy a new car.

What’s most impressive to me is that Mark isn’t guessing. He couldn’t care less if the whole shop is laughing at him. Several of my techs definitely were. He knows what he’s got. He knows what’s expected. Mark simply doesn’t give a shit. That level of confidence and determination is fascinating. The balls to approach a situation like this and say:

“Fuck it, put the engine in.”

Now, whether or not Mark’s behavior is wise financial planning or some level of frugality the rest of us can scarcely comprehend is beside the point. The real question that keeps me confounded is how this is going to work out for him in the end. Will he get this lumbering monstrosity of patchwork repairs and questionable integrity up to a million miles? Will Honda send him a plaque and congratulate him on being customer of the decade? Will the transmission grenade next week?

Sorry friends, I don’t have the answers. But I’m rooting for the guy. I’ll let you know if he breaks a record.

Thanks for reading.

I’m still a little surprised that people actually want to read these things, but I’m grateful for every subscriber, comment, and share.

If you’d like to follow along, feel free to subscribe.

See you in the next one.

Deferred Maintenance is fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and gin, not necessarily in that order. If you’d like to encourage these questionable life choices, you can throw a few bucks in the tip jar here:

https://ko-fi.com/deferredmaintenance

We need to talk about the kids.

I’ve had a lot of different jobs. Everything from tacos to coffee, warehouses to automotive repair, and a few others in between. I’ve worked with a lot of different people. Some young, some old, and some with questionable age-to-appearance ratios. But, it’s a rough scene out there with the youth of today.

In the words of the late and great George Carlin:

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that.”

That poor guy is spinning in his grave like a damn jet engine concerning the average American teenager.

Now, before everyone starts telling me all about how I sound like an old man yelling at the clouds playing music too loud on his lawn, let me explain.

I, like many others in this day and age, work two jobs. (So many jobs available in this economy, I have two of them! Har-har-fuckin-har!) For my second job, I have the privilege, the immense pleasure, and the exceedingly insulting pay package, of working evenings at my local Planet Fitness.

It’s not so bad, honestly. I hang out in my fishbowl-shaped front desk area. I bounce my homemade rubber-band ball off the floor. I walk around and feather dust the machines. I wipe sun screen lotion booty imprints off the tanning beds. Sometimes, if I get lucky, I even get to observe a couple meth-heads fighting over who was in line for the massage chairs first.

No, Carla, I don’t really care if Janelle slept with your dad. Or baby daddy. Or… Brother? It’s always hard to tell with these people.

But, I digress. We’re talking about the kids, after all.

Every year, the benevolent corporate suits, shareholders, franchise owners, and other assorted yes-men of Planet Fitness, decide to unleash a very special type of cruelty upon the dedicated staff that run their facilities. A horde of broccoli haircuts, Axe body spray, and social ineptitude assault the gym for a couple months.

I’m talking, of course, about the appropriately named “High School Summer Pass” program. On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Keep the kids off the streets! Come work out for free! Let the violently purple color scheme of our establishment seep into the subconscious areas of your adolescent brains.

Good… Goooooood…

Aside from the obvious concerns we may have about this whole affair, the real horror comes from a realization I had just the other day.

Picture yours truly, tired dad-bod decked out in my abhorrent purple shirt. People enter, I say “Hi!” with my practiced customer service voice. I watch the clock, patiently waiting for the sweet release of 10pm.

A gaggle of teenage girls approach through the front door. Their appearance is disheveled and unkempt. They do not respond to my friendly greeting. The alpha, clearly the driving force of this pack of troglodytes, thrusts her phone toward my face and utters a guttural sound I chose to interpret as: “Please assist me, sir.”

I stare blankly, evaluating my options. Attempt to assist? Respond in kind? Perhaps thrust my own phone toward her in an effort to adhere to the customs of her people?

I decide my duty as a dedicated employee is to offer whatever helpful service I can provide. Her cohorts cluster around her, heads down as they bump into random shit while their eyes stay fixated on the phones.

“What seems to be the problem?” I ask politely.

“THIS NO WORKING,” she says, greasy hair and press-on nails clacking against the broken screen.

“Did you download the app?” I ask, trying my best not to laugh.

“I don’t know,” she responds, oblivious.

I stare, unsure of what absurdity I’ve just encountered. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure if she could read. If you haven’t seen one of those viral clips of someone on the street asking random people to read a note card with some moderately long words while they sputter and choke, then you’re not living, my dudes.

It’s glorious.

Like watching a train full of kittens derail into a packed church. Horrifying and enlightening all at once.

As it turns out, with enough patience and resolve, I was able to guide this young woman to her ultimate goal of free gym festivities. I’m sure I’ll regret it at some point, but alas, I am a humble servant of the purple fitness hegemony for 20 hours a week.

The problem, dear friends, is that this is not an isolated incident. Literacy rates for just about everybody are down across the board. Attention spans have been diminished. Our entire way of life has devolved into some form or another of instant gratification. Push the button, get the prize. Repeat.

Now, I’m not recommending we all throw our phones away and move onto a nature commune, but it does worry me a great deal to observe these situations in public. We might expect an entire generation of young people, raised with technology more advanced than the equipment that enabled the goddamn moon landing, to be able to successfully download an app, read the instructions, and then enter a public business with confidence.

Instead, my disgruntled old self is over here holding the hands of young adults as I walk them through what is largely an automated and instantaneous digital process. I spend an obscene amount of time helping people navigate technology that is literally designed to remove my presence from the equation. The very technology that promised us the most digitally intelligent population in the history of the world is, in fact, destroying their hope of growing into strong, capable, resilient adults.

I can’t tell what’s more depressing, teens 100 years ago dying in a coal mine, or teens today too afraid to make eye contact with the guy behind the counter at a gym that looks like McDonald’s Grimace vomited everywhere.

Pray for me, folks, it’s going to be a long summer.

Thanks for reading.

I’m still a little surprised that people actually want to read these things, but I’m grateful for every subscriber, comment, and share.

If you’d like to follow along, feel free to subscribe.

See you in the next one.

Deferred Maintenance is fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and gin, not necessarily in that order. If you’d like to encourage these questionable life choices, you can throw a few bucks in the tip jar here:

https://ko-fi.com/deferredmaintenance