CATHIE SHAFFER: It’s me versus the machines

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May 18, 2009

By Cathie Shaffer The Daily Independent Mon May 18, 2009, 11:45 PM EDT

In case you’ve forgotten the premise of the “Terminator” movies — or maybe you’ve never cared — it is that humankind must fight for existence in a world taken over by machines.

Sometimes, I think we’re already there.

Yeah, I’ve seen those TV commercials for the newest of these movies, and the machines are huge and awesome. The machines that run my life don’t look like that, fortunately, but I swear they have the same kind of artificial intelligence.

Of course, I’ve expected this for years. I grew up in the 1960s, when the world of science fiction was at its peak. Robots, Martian colonies, Dick Tracy’s watch communicator — the indoctrination I received through fiction and comics was thorough and deep.

So I was amused but not all that surprised when my cell phone rang and the ID showed a co-worker’s cell number. The odd thing here was that my cell phone was in my purse and hers lay closed on her desk, a good foot away from her nearest hand.

We both had a good laugh — but it wasn’t near as funny when it happened again.

Not only have our cell phones become buddies without us, I’m real suspicious of my microwave and coffeemaker. When the time changed this spring, I set the digital clocks on both of them.

And both appliances kept perfect time ... for a while. I noticed a week or two ago that the coffeemaker was off by an entire hour. Oddly enough, so was the microwave.

The evening the coffeemaker spewed grounds into the pot, which never happens, is also the night when a bowl of soup warming in the microwave erupted.

Hmmmm ... coincidence or conspiracy?

My refrigerator has it in for me, too. I’ve had it for close to a decade with no trouble at all. Yet now, it’s a rare occurrence when I can remove anything, even a tray of ice cubes, from its freezer without a chunk of frozen meat or bag of mixed veggies shooting out at me.

I snapped on the radio the other day to catch the weather report and the first thing I heard was, “Are you finally ready to do something about your weight?”

Now maybe it’s just me, but I think that’s getting a little personal.

With all these weird goings-on, paranoia is sneaking up on me. How long, I wonder, until the television starts giving me subliminal message to take out the clothes dryer? Or the bread machine decides to mix concrete instead to permanently keep the dog from barking in the kitchen?

Scoff if you will, but I’m not taking chances. Until I know exactly how the hot water feels about me, I believe I’ll skip those nice, long showers in the morning and stick to cold-water baths instead.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at (606) 473-9851 or cathieshaffer@zoominternet.net

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