Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016

What’s that got to do with today? people ask me.

Plenty, I tell them. For one thing, we’re relying too much on these devices: Kids are playing video games instead of sports or even stickball in the streets; their parents aren’t supervising them because they’re always on the Internet or texting or whatever; even in the schools they’re tethered to those unnatural things. You walk along the street and people are mumbling to themselves. Not so long ago, you’d have thought they were maniacs, but now you just realize they’re talking on their Bluetooths. Adults come into a nice restaurant and don’t even bother to look at the menu; they’ve already accessed it online and decided what to order. And while they’re having their feasts, there’s a constant ringing and beeping. Some are considerate and go outside so they won’t inflict their conversations on the other diners; others voices blare out, telling strangers more than they want to know about the talkers’ future plans, problems at work, and sex lives.

The hell with them all.

The landline is okay, though. It lets me use a couple of those old-fashioned rotary phones, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom, that work off direct phone-company lines. So I don’t have to worry whenever the electricity goes out. And besides ordering out for pizza and Chinese, I can pick it up, dial, and hear a friendly familiar voice. I love to talk, to talk for hours. I tell my friends what I’ve been doing: a trip to the yarn shop; finding a guy to fix the siding on the back of my house; the tree in my side yard that looks like it might have to come down; the jackrabbit that hides in the weeds out back. All sorts of interesting things.

And then there’s the TV. I’m up on all the new shows and the reruns on the oldies channels too. Funny how the content of the shows hasn’t much changed in the past thirty-five years.

Thirty-five years...

Back then Gene, my husband, and I had just moved here to this nice central-Michigan town. General Motors had a small branch office here, so I could keep working. Land was cheap and we bought a big rural tract and built our house on it. Today I’m still living there; the house is sort of isolated, but that’s how I like it. The neighbors are fine, and I can see them when I want to, on my own terms.

Gene and I had a little girl, Maryanne. A darling. The schools here weren’t so good, and her bus rides were too long, so finally we had to send her away to boarding school. It worked out fine: She got into a good college, met a smart fellow. She and her family are in Indiana now — not far, but I hardly ever see them. Gene died of a heart attack seven years ago. I grieved, sure, but I’ve become accustomed to being alone. I have my activities: gardening, trips to the farmers’ market, a weekly session at the beauty shop. I keep up my appearance; I’ve got standards.

It’s January, and the snowstorms have been pretty heavy this year. Christmas wasn’t much. Maryanne and her family couldn’t make it up here; they offered to send me a round-trip ticket to Indianapolis, but I don’t trust the airlines, so I stayed home. None of my friends and neighbors invited me like they used to. Guess they figured I’d be busy.

Come to think of it, I don’t hear from many of my friends and neighbors at all anymore. Probably they’re glued to their computers. Even my friends who live at a distance didn’t send cards — probably they’re all into those damned e-cards. I call and get their answering machines, but there’s no way I’m going to leave a message on one of those things.

This winter I’ve been studying seed catalogues, planning my spring and summer vegetable gardens. There’re some interesting new varieties available. But when I call to ask questions about them, I always get put on hold, with some horrible music blaring in my ear. The same thing happens when I try to order a few tools that look promising.

It’s sure not like it used to be. Even if I tried to order by mail, the postal service would louse it up. Don’t get me started on the USPS; if there was ever an organization that was messed up, it’s them. Too few clerks, and they’ve put in these machines that are supposed to save you time mailing packages or buying stamps, but there’s always a line of morons in front of them who can’t figure out how they work. Give me a real-live person, even if he or she doesn’t do much better than the automatic vendors.

Lord, there’s so much wrong with this world. I blame it all on that Steve Jobs and his cohorts. They’ve ruined everything for us clear-thinking, intelligent people.

It’s going to be really cold tonight. Another storm, a big one, is due any time. I stepped out on the porch and called the dog. Big female golden Lab named Genie after my late husband. She came right away, that big tail wagging.

Gene, he didn’t agree with me about this technology stuff. He liked his computer, his cell phone, his electronic games. Agreed with me when I’d say I was a Luddite, and then he’d laugh. But he sure wasn’t laughing when I found him collapsed over his computer keyboard of a heart attack at age sixty. And I sure didn’t laugh when I saw what he’d been looking at.