No Nostalgia!

I read a lot of non-fiction.  My current reading is a series of travel essays by Bill Bryson, and he occasionally laments over "the way things used to be," usually in the context of the way English villages have lost their old-fashioned charm and character in the new age of British austerity.

Here, I have to disagree with him.

I definitely DON'T long for "the way things used to be."  Yeah, it would be nice to be a kid in my childhood home.  To visit.  For a few days.  But I wouldn't ever want the world to backtrack.  I like living in this world, thanks.

I like living in a world where I can marry anyone I choose, regardless of gender.

I like living in a world where I can get strawberries in winter and crab legs at the local grocery store.

I like living in a world where I can talk to almost anyone, any time, without worrying about long distance charges.

I like living in a world where I can send a message in half a dozen ways and know it'll be received in seconds.

I like living in a world where I can click a few keys and find out nearly any fact I require without having to spend hours in the library.

I like living in a world where I can write a novel on a computer and save my work to a cloud server, allowing me to work from any spot with an Internet connection, and not be forced to tap out words on a typewriter, or write by hand.

I like living in a world where I can wear tri-focal contact lenses and don't need to switch between two pairs of glasses.

I like living in a world where the cars are safer than ever, where the seats are comfortable, where every car has air conditioning.

I like living in a world with instantaneous GPS location that will tell me how to get where I need to go.

I like living in a world where the movie theater are tall and comfortable, where the pictures come with surround-sound, where the special effects look stunningly real instead of fake or cheesy, and where the super-heroes I could only see in comics when I was a kid can come to life on a screen three stories tall.

I like living in a world where the stores and gas stations are open 24 hours a day, and where I can access my money with an ATM or a debit card, and where I can access my bank account from home any time I like.

I like living in a world where I can record every single TV show I want and watch them when =I= decide to.

I like living in a world where the word "faggot" is falling out of fashion as an insult, where quiet racism is being dragged into the open and examined, where LGBTQ issues are being discussed in public school classrooms, where I can tell my students that I'm married to a man and let LGBT teens know that they can do it, too.

We have a great deal to work on, but what time has not?  I wouldn't go back to "the way things used to be" for any amount of money.

Dodging a Bullet at the Grocery Store

Popped out to do the grocery shopping this morning.  If I must grocery shop, it's better in the morning when the store is less crowded, and today it was almost empty.  Yay!

Oddly, though, I passed a cluster of store workers crowded around the register area with worried looks on their faces.  Huh.  Ah well.

Finished my end of things.  When I got up to the checkout lanes and found only two lanes open, with a long line at both.  What the hell?

Growling under my breath, I got in line and got out my phone to read the daily news while I waited.  At last it was getting on my turn when a lane next to me opened and the cashier beckoned me over.  Yeah, okay.

She ran my purchases through, and I overheard her talking to another worker--only three registers in the entire store were working at all.  I asked what was going on, and she said that the computer system had gone kablooey last night and they had only managed to recover three checkout stations so far.  Uh oh!  Friday is their busiest day.  In the late afternoon, when I usually shop, they have seven or eight stations open, and it's packed.

Okay, then.  Dodged that bullet.  I hope they get the rest up and running.