The Machine Has Spoken

     So I'm engaged in one of my regular morning routines, waiting in the drive-through at our local Tim Horton's to get coffee. We're addicted to morning coffee from our local Tim Horton's. My order is nearly always the same, two medium senior coffees with cream and Sweet 'N Low. I know exactly how much that costs too . . . $3.88.

     When I ordered my coffee at the drive-up intercom, the price did come up to $3.88 on their electtronic order screen. I pulled around to the pick-up window and handed the cashier a $5 bill. She gave me $3.88 in change along with the two coffees I requested.

     “Something's wrong,” I said. “I think you gave me too much change.”

     She frowned and gave me a look that said, “Are you going to give me trouble?”

     I told her that the coffee cost $3.88 and I gave her a $5 bill.

     “I'm just doing what the machine said,” she grumped.

     Well, I wasn't going to debate both her and 'the machine' so I just drove off. I can't remember the last time I paid 61 cents for a cup of coffee, but I'm sure it's been a while. It does make me wonder what kind of math they teach in schools nowadays. We noticed that another coffee spot we frequent, Panera's, requests that patrons pay with exact change. Is the reason because cashiers have difficulty figuring the correct change nowadays. Or their machines?

     As I indicated on my last blog, I'm not too crazy about technology nowadays. My wife and I went with family to Disneyworld and were refused entrance into the Magic Kingdom. Their machines at the entry turnstyles claimed we didn't have a valid ticket to the park. When we protested, we were informed that the machines had spoken—no ticket, no entry.

     But we did have tickets, the electronic variety! It took us a half hour waiting in line at guest relations and showing the customer service representative my credit card and driver's license to prove that I'd bought a ticket. It turns out that the machine that validates our entry into the park did not communicate with the machine that produced our “Magic Band” wrist bands that acts as kind of your park passport.  

   What we need then ultimately are machines that better communicate with eachother. Witness one more case in point. On our way home from St Louis this past week, Wendy got a text message from the car we were driving that our right front passenger tire was low. Oh, oh. We had hundreds of miles yet to drive before getting home. And we didn't even know our car knew how to send texts.

     So we stopped to put air into our right front tire but that didn't seem to do any good. We keyed in the diagnostics panel on our Chevy Traverse and it said the tire pressure on the right front passenger tire was still low. And still leaking! Thankfully it was a slow leak and we were able to make it home.

     This morning I checked the right front passenger tire with a manual hand-held tire pressure gauge and it said the right front tire pressure was fine. What?? Then I noticed the rear passenger side tire was totally flat. Just then Wendy said she received another text message alert from our car about the low front passenger side tire.

     Who was it who said, “What we have here . . . is failure to communicate.”