Our minds are gone. Technology has taken the place of voluntary brain activity. How can I say this? Because I just recently—once again—witnessed it with my own eyes. I don’t know how much more of this I can take y’all. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe [© Maroon 5].
*hooking up to respirator*
OK, now that I’ve pumped air back into my lungs, I can continue. This is how it went down, and why I’m pretty much rethinking why I ever thought that bringing children into this world was such a good thing.
My husband and I were driving out of the lot of our local gas station when I noticed this middle-aged black woman staring at the hood of her car. Something about her puzzled look told me that she was wondering how to open the hood. *damn, you, mother’s intuition*
I turned to my husband and said, “I think she needs help.”
Ever the chivalrous guy, my husband bounded out of the truck to see what might be the matter. Sure enough she had returned to her car to find the battery dead and had no clue how to get her hood opened.
“You’ll have to open the hood from the inside,” my husband informed her. “Have you tried to get in the car?”
“I tried but the key doesn’t work,” she said.
Slightly puzzled, my husband asked, “Did you try all the locks?”
“No,” she said, handing him the key. He placed the key in the trunk’s lock and it opened instantly.
“Oooh, wonderful! I guess I’ll have to climb through to the front to open the door,” she stated.
“No, you shouldn’t have to do that. If it works on the trunk’s lock, it should work on the door locks. You said it didn’t work, right?”
“Oh, I never tried unlocking it that way. I was trying to get the remote to work,” she responded.
My husband’s amazement didn’t have to show on his face as he unlocked the driver’s side door and opened it—I wore the look for him. Right up to the moment, she walked up to give me a high-five. *crickets*
Never in all my days did I think we’d happen on something like this. This woman, when she dressed so eloquently for work that morning, had obviously forgotten something in her rush to get to work. That something was important. So important it would have helped her in opening her door and then popping the hood. That thing was common sense mixed with a little critical thinking.
I looked this woman over. She could have been anyone’s mother, grandmother. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was in a management position at her company or if she had one or two degrees. But despite all that she might have been or possessed, the one thing I knew was that she was incapable of thinking on her feet when faced with obstacles. As long as she had stood out there, it never occurred to this woman to unlock her car door manually.
Had she never opened a car door manually before? I pondered. You know I was trying to rationalize this out. I mean, never? Yeah, I was talking to myself just like that. Not even on another car? I had to remind myself to stop shaking my head, because she might actually notice that.
What if we hadn’t been there, would she have stood outside until her husband arrived? I won’t even get into the finer details about her carpool mate being there with her the entire time and not herself doing an Eric B. and Rakim by thinking of a master plan. One that included using the damn key in the lock.
More conflicting questions arose as we waited for enough juice from our battery to transfer to hers. Where did these broads work? Who hired them? Those are questions I’ll never know. And at this point in time, I really have no desire to know, because I’m already psychologically damaged by the experience. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.
It’s scary when you think about it, but there are a lot of people like that woman out there. They’re operating around us—and they’re not thinking.
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