I went out with my girlfriend last night. For a few weeks we’d wanted to visit the new Western Sizzler near our apartment, so we did. Marcy had the salad bar and I ordered the small rib eye plate. They brought me a New York strip that was completely overcooked and the 7-and-7s were watered down, but other than that, it was pretty good. Being a complainer isn’t going to help anyone, and our country really just needs to stick together in this economy.
On the way home, I stopped to put half a tank of fuel in the Monte Carlo. I gave Marcy a ten-spot to grab a pack of MGD cans and a jumbo bag of Funyuns. It was Friday, after all.
When I finished fueling, I hung up the nozzle. The pump beeped at me, asking if I wanted a receipt. Blinking black arrows on a LCD screen pointed at two buttons on the surrounding panel. My choices of responses beside the arrows were “Yes” and “No, thanks.”
“No, thanks?” Who the hell am I thanking? Am I supposed to be thanking the pump? I mean, somewhere, some bastard had to think about this as he created the text and programming for thousands of fuel stations.
So what was it this idiot had in mind? Is this his quiet way of reminding the country to be nicer to machines? Had this mongoloid sot watched Maximum Overdrive one too many times and simply snapped?
“No, thanks” The sick fuck even put in a comma. Like it’s not stupid enough for us to be thanking a cold, unthinking, unfeeling fuel pump, but we’re going to take the absurdity further with a thoughtful pause before saying “thanks?” That goddamned comma speaks to the detail and twisted deliberation with which this madman crafted the pump’s interface.
And this is what happens when corrupt, totalitarian regimes ship our American men’s jobs overseas. The circuit boards in fuel pumps across our great nation are now suffering the ills of being molested by slant-eyed assembly men and corrupted by perverted, curry-sniffing programmers—people unfit to clean prison crematoriums, much less construct fuel pumps that transfuse the lifeblood into this proudly mobile, motoring American nation.
I pressed “Yes” so hard the LCD display flickered and faded into faint, rainbow waves—interestingly, not unlike the rainbow waves I see in the hose water as I wash my old motor oil off the pavement and into the sewer drain near our apartment. The tab printed and curled and I tore it off with a patriotic vigor.
I didn’t want a damned receipt, but if I had pressed “No, thanks.” I would have been complicit in this crime—an accessory to the terrorist who designed this pump, an accomplice to the deranged and dumb son-of-a-bitch, foreign architect attempting to force this seemingly insignificant moment into existence millions of times each day across the United Stated of America.
The government wants to fight terrorism? Here at these subtly anthropomorphized pumps is where the homeland battle should begin. But, will that sell papers or generate viewers? No. And it’s a damned conspiracy.
“I hope you got everything you wanted,” I said to Marcy as she climbed into the car, “because we’re NEVER coming back to this Christ-forsaken, communist gas station!”
“The beer and Funyuns are in the bag,” Marcy responded with sympathetic eyes and a shrug.
I just stared at her for a moment before kissing her forehead. For a sixteen year old, she really gets it and I’m lucky to have her. I just smiled and turned the engine over without another word. She wouldn’t understand my anger, and I don’t yet want to corrupt her with the reality of this fucked-up world.
On the way home, I stopped to put half a tank of fuel in the Monte Carlo. I gave Marcy a ten-spot to grab a pack of MGD cans and a jumbo bag of Funyuns. It was Friday, after all.
When I finished fueling, I hung up the nozzle. The pump beeped at me, asking if I wanted a receipt. Blinking black arrows on a LCD screen pointed at two buttons on the surrounding panel. My choices of responses beside the arrows were “Yes” and “No, thanks.”
“No, thanks?” Who the hell am I thanking? Am I supposed to be thanking the pump? I mean, somewhere, some bastard had to think about this as he created the text and programming for thousands of fuel stations.
So what was it this idiot had in mind? Is this his quiet way of reminding the country to be nicer to machines? Had this mongoloid sot watched Maximum Overdrive one too many times and simply snapped?
“No, thanks” The sick fuck even put in a comma. Like it’s not stupid enough for us to be thanking a cold, unthinking, unfeeling fuel pump, but we’re going to take the absurdity further with a thoughtful pause before saying “thanks?” That goddamned comma speaks to the detail and twisted deliberation with which this madman crafted the pump’s interface.
And this is what happens when corrupt, totalitarian regimes ship our American men’s jobs overseas. The circuit boards in fuel pumps across our great nation are now suffering the ills of being molested by slant-eyed assembly men and corrupted by perverted, curry-sniffing programmers—people unfit to clean prison crematoriums, much less construct fuel pumps that transfuse the lifeblood into this proudly mobile, motoring American nation.
I pressed “Yes” so hard the LCD display flickered and faded into faint, rainbow waves—interestingly, not unlike the rainbow waves I see in the hose water as I wash my old motor oil off the pavement and into the sewer drain near our apartment. The tab printed and curled and I tore it off with a patriotic vigor.
I didn’t want a damned receipt, but if I had pressed “No, thanks.” I would have been complicit in this crime—an accessory to the terrorist who designed this pump, an accomplice to the deranged and dumb son-of-a-bitch, foreign architect attempting to force this seemingly insignificant moment into existence millions of times each day across the United Stated of America.
The government wants to fight terrorism? Here at these subtly anthropomorphized pumps is where the homeland battle should begin. But, will that sell papers or generate viewers? No. And it’s a damned conspiracy.
“I hope you got everything you wanted,” I said to Marcy as she climbed into the car, “because we’re NEVER coming back to this Christ-forsaken, communist gas station!”
“The beer and Funyuns are in the bag,” Marcy responded with sympathetic eyes and a shrug.
I just stared at her for a moment before kissing her forehead. For a sixteen year old, she really gets it and I’m lucky to have her. I just smiled and turned the engine over without another word. She wouldn’t understand my anger, and I don’t yet want to corrupt her with the reality of this fucked-up world.
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