Remember When Delivery By Drones Was Not Within the Realm of the Possibile?

The assistant walked into the big office. “Sir,” he began. “I – ”

“Hold on. Here, look at this screen. Our drones cover 75% of the U.S. airspace. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“That is wonderful, sir. But there appears to be an issue with the drones. People are getting upset.”

“People? What are people? Oh, you mean those creatures who are always eating and losing things, and walk around sniffling when it’s cold. Ugh. Why don’t they blow their noses?”

“I don’t know, sir. But yes – those people are now getting upset about the drones.”

“Is this about that accident last week?”

“Well, sir, when a drone carrying a snowblower falls out of the sky into the middle of a bar mitzvah, there is usually some negative public reaction.”

“But I told them, it wasn’t our fault. The ground-pilot was texting with his wife about what they were going to have for dinner. Totally unforeseeable.”

“I know, sir. But these accidents aren’t the only thing. People just didn’t anticipate that the sky would be filled with thousands of drones at every moment, so that you couldn’t even see a clear patch.”

“Well what did they expect? Invisible drones? Hmm.” He pulled out a little notebook and scribbled something.

“Sir, the point is if we don’t stop the drones soon we may find ourselves the subject of a scathing op-ed piece.”

“Whoa, whoa. We definitely don’t want that. But what alternatives do we have?”

“Sir, we could go back to shipping by truck and regular air mail.”

“And go back to the Dark Ages of delivery that took all night? We may as well trade in our toilet paper for corn cobs while we’re at it. No, if we have to stop the drones, there’s only one option.”

“Sir, you don’t mean…”

“Oh, yes, I certainly do. Delivery by catapult.”

It was an unusual change to the system but soon everyone got used to it. The delivery centers were reorganized throughout the country so that every home and business was within catapulting range of at least one delivery center, and every delivery center was within catapulting range of another delivery center, so that no matter where the ordered product originated, it could be conveyed via catapult to any place in America.

Instead of the skies being filled with unstaffed aircraft, the skies were filled with packages being lobbed to the next destination. But there was no noise, and because the calibration had to be done only once – at the point of catapult – the packages did not need constant mid-flight monitoring. The accident rate dropped dramatically.

The catapults were also amenable to automation. The packages would be sorted and placed on conveyor belt, but instead of being directed to a drone, the packages were directed to one of the catapults. There were multiple catapults at each delivery center. At first the catapults were arranged in a circle, with every point of the compass covered. But then someone realized that by placing the catapult on a swivel chair, all compass points could be achieved with far fewer catapults. A computer algorithm calculated the direction, angle, and force required to catapult each package to its destination, accounting for weight, drag, and wind speed.

In the middle of the delivery center was the reception zone, made of a large canvas piled up with couch cushions. This model was copied at households and businesses across the country. In every backyard or office parking lot was a reception zone where packages could land. In households that didn’t have the yard space, the most athletic member of the family would run outside at the scheduled delivery time and catch the package by hand. The increase in concussions and broken packages was more than offset by the increase in general fitness.

“Sir, I can’t believe it. The catapult system is a success!”

“Of course it is. The packages arrive just as quickly as with the drones, but we don’t have to hire ground-pilots. We’ve been able to lay off so many people! Think of all the money we’ll save on tissues.”

“Yes, sir, that’s wonderful. But now the sky is filled with so many packages being catapulted that it’s no longer safe for airplanes. How are people going to travel?”

“I am so glad you asked. Let me show you.” He got up, handed the assistant a helmet and parachute, and led him outside to an empty catapult.

Thank you all for reading this year, and have a happy and healthy 2014. Can’t wait to see what’s in store! -MK

Posted on 31 December 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 2

Remember When the Affordable Care Act Wasn’t In the News Every Day?

The Director knew it was time for a staff meeting.

“All right, everyone. The deadline’s almost here. The President’s promised a smoothly functioning healthcare website by tomorrow. Now, I know everyone’s been working hard. Visits to non-work-related websites like Facebook and Above the Law dropped by 40% in November. I’m proud of that figure and will make sure that New York Times knows about it. But the fact remains that despite our intense efforts the website is, in a word, still not working. So we’re down to our last option – paper applications.”

The following day, when millions of Americans visited the federal government’s healthcare website to see who won the bet, they were confronted with a perfectly functioning, non-glitch riddled single webpage, with no links or forms or fields or even photographs, but one toll-free telephone number.

When the number was called, the caller would be put in touch with someone who took their information and then read back to them the different health policies that were available to the caller and the price. It was clear from the very beginning that the “qualified healthcare agents” that took the calls had been greatly influenced by technology and faced challenges adjusting to world run by humans.

“Thank you for calling healthcare.gov,” the agents would say in their best cheerful machine-voice. “Press 1 if you are calling about individual policies. Press 2 if you are calling about family policies. Press 3 if you have experience building large websites.” When they realized they couldn’t tell which number had been pressed, they would say, “Why don’t you just tell me what you are calling about?”

After a day the telephone lines were hopelessly congested. The Director had to call another meeting.
“Okay,” said the Director at another staff meeting, “the telephones aren’t working out so hot, either. The average wait-time has grown so long that people are complaining about the hold music. And here I thought people liked Lawrence Welk. All right, well, we’ve got to go back to the drawing board. What’s a drawing board? I don’t know. Look it up on Wikipedia.”

The only thing left to do was to have people sign up in person. People were annoyed at having to drive all the way to Washington, D.C. just to shop for medical insurance, but the complaints subsided a bit when the President issued Executive Order 94029 which authorized valet parking.

The wait time to see an agent was still very long. And the long journey made it even longer, since people figured, “Well, if we came all this way and waited all this time, we may as well ask as many stupid questions as possible.”
The wait time to meet with a federal healthcare agent became so long that people were practically living in the lobby. They had to miss appointment, including doctors’ appointments. The government had to arrange for doctors to visit the lobby and examine the people waiting in line. The convenience more than made up for the lack of privacy.

The people in line started liking the lobby doctors so much that they lost their interest in procuring health insurance that would require them to find a new doctor. They started letting others go ahead of them in line, hoping to extend their stay. “Oh, you go on ahead of us,” people would say. “We haven’t decided what we want yet.”

The lobby grew ever more crowded, and eventually some members of Congress introduced a bill to expand the lobby and the number of doctors that serviced it. The bill won bipartisan support, largely on the strength of a rider that increased the Netflix subsidies for senators and their staff. The Affordable Care Act Sign-Up in Person Waiting Lobbies proliferated around the United States, so that whenever people had to see the doctor they would just go to one of these lobbies, get in line, and wait for the doctor to come around with the stethoscope and little rubber hammer.

A cottage industry of lobby-care grew, and almost overnight people started seeing everything from examination tables on wheels to mobile MRI apps for smartphones. Around the time that they started adding operating tables to the lobbies, the website was finally fixed. No bugs, no glitches, no crashes. But no one bothered signing up. The millions of Americans waiting in line already liked the plan they had, and wanted to keep it.

Posted on 30 November 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 4

Remember When the Government Wasn’t Shut Down?

Wow. This blog is three years old.

“Okay everyone,” the tour guide said to the travelers on the bus. “I know that our itinerary says that we’re supposed to see the Lincoln Memorial today. But unfortunately the federal government is shut down and the Lincoln Memorial is closed.”

“What about the Jefferson Memorial?”

“Um, that’s closed too.”

“What about the Washington Monument?”

“Yes, that too.”

“What about the American Battle Monuments Commission?”

“Yes, that’s closed.”

“And the Library of Congress?”

“Yes. Everything is closed.”

“What about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?”

“Yes, that too is closed. All the federal monuments are closed.”

“What about the mouse laboratory at the National Institutes of Health?”

“What did I just say? All of the major tourist sites are closed! The Smithsonian, the National Gallery, the Congressional Barbershop – everything! But I know you all paid for this trip to Washington, D.C., and, doggone it, we aren’t about to take your money and not give you a hanging-from-the-chandelier bus tour. We have two choices: Denny’s and Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Who wants to go to Denny’s?”

Half the people on the bus raised their hands.

“And who wants to go to Five Guys?”

The other half of the people on the bus raised their hands.

“Well, we can’t go to both places. Half of you are going to have to switch your vote. Or, I guess since we’re in Washington, majority rules, right? Heh, heh.” No one joined his laughter. “Anyway, so let’s vote again.” But the vote was the same.

“Well folks, we appear to be at a stalemate. You’re going to have to come to some kind of an agreement.”

The talks between the tourists went on for the better part of the morning. At noon, the tourists who were in favor of Denny’s reported that while the talks had been productive, no deal had been reached. Then the tourists who were in favor of Five Guys reported that the Denny’s tourists weren’t willing to negotiate.

“What’s to negotiate?” the Denny’s tourists asked. “We want to go to Denny’s.”

The stalemate dragged on. Nothing else could happen on the trip. In the morning the tourists would leave the hotel and board the bus, sit there for eight hours, report that no progress had been made, and rush back into the hotel in time for the complimentary oatmeal cookies.

After a week the tourists were out of clean clothes. The Five Guys tourists asked the tour guide if the bus could make a short trip to the laundromat.

“Sorry,” the tour guide said. “Only if you can agree.”

The Five Guys tourists asked the Denny’s tourists if they wanted to go to do laundry. The Denny’s tourists certainly needed clean clothes, but after a brief closed meeting in the back of the bus, the Denny’s tourists reported that they wouldn’t go anywhere until the Five Guys tourists agreed to go to Denny’s. “Once you agree to go to Denny’s, we can go anywhere you want, including the laundromat.”

Then the Five Guys tourists squeezed past the Denny’s tourists in the narrow aisle of the bus and had their own closed meeting.

“We will not negotiate under the threat of Denny’s,” the Five Guys tourists concluded. “We will not stand for these ‘my way or the highway’ tactics.”

Halfway through the second week the bus tourists were all wearing dirty clothes, and although none of the other hotel guests wanted to be rude, the clothespins on their noses were hard to ignore.

The bus tourists would board the idle bus each morning with the results of polls they had taken of the hotel guests. The poll numbers conflicted, and both sides respectively declared, “We’re winning!”

By the end of the second week one of the Five Guys tourists could no longer stand wearing the same shirt, and ran away under stealth of night.

“We have the majority!” the Denny’s tourists shouted. “Tour guide, call the tourists for a vote.”

“Actually, I’ve just received word that the government shutdown is over. All the monuments are open again! So where does everyone want to go?”

Posted on 11 October 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 8

Remember When You Could Twerk and Not Cause a Worldwide Scandal?

I was setting the table, trying to decide whether to fold the napkins in the shape of a rectangle or a triangle, when my wife came home from work.

“Hi honey!” I said. “What do you think? Rectangle or triangle?” I asked, holding up an example of each.

“Did you hear about Miley Cyrus’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards?”

“No, I didn’t. What happened?”

“You didn’t hear about it! Do you live under a rock? All over the news, all over the internet, all over Facebook, it’s all anyone is talking about.”

“Really? There wasn’t anything in the Times about it.”

She rolled her eyes, and I made a mental note to never again come to dinner unprepared. There is certainly no lack of coverage of the event. Here are just some of the recent headlines:

“Miley Cyrus’s twerking routine was cultural appropriation at its worst” (The Guardian)

“Miley Cyrus, twerking, and the ‘sexual hazing’ of American pop stars” (Christian Science Monitor)

“Justin Timberlake Is Cool With Miley Cyrus Twerking” (Vibe)

“Miley Cyrus to Lead US Attack on Iran” (Bayard & Holmes)

Young people have always used dancing to meet other young people. I remember the dance scene from the 1987 film Can’t Buy Me Love, where Patrick Dempsey thinks he’s doing the latest dance from American Bandstand. He doesn’t know that he was watching some educational program instead of American Bandstand, and that it was the African Anteater ritual he was learning, and when he performs the ritual at his high school, all the other students think it’s just the latest dance that all the cool kids are doing, and soon they are all doing the African Anteater ritual. Miley Cyrus should have done that at the Video Music Awards.

When I was in middle school I learned something called the Chicken Dance. First you held your hands out in front of you and clapped your fingers and thumb together, like you had lobster claws. Next you tucked each fist into the adjacent armpit and flapped your elbows, like you had chicken wings and were trying to fly. Then you crouched down a little while simultaneously moving your rear end from side to side. Finally, you stood straight up and clapped your hands four times. There was a song that went with it so that you knew when to do the moves.

The venerable Oxford English Dictionary is apparently going to add “twerk” to its list, defining it as a verb meaning to “dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.” Based on my years of experience, I am comfortable saying that the third movement of the Chicken Dance qualifies as a kind of proto-twerk.

But when I think of dances that involve hip movements and squatting stances, the kind of dances that, pretty much, anyone can do, I think most fondly of the Macarena, which rocked the world around the year 1996. Like the Chicken Dance, the Macarena also involved a repetitive series of dance moves that progressed from putting the hands out, to placing the hands on the body, to rotating the hips with twerk-like elements, and then ending with a clap. But the Macarena, which was named after the song that inspired the well-structured, was far more complex than the Chicken Dance, and represented a great leap forward in the evolution of dignified group-dancing.

Like scientists seeking a purer form of a metal, the twerkers have stripped dancing of the unnecessary hand and arm movements and unduly formalistic sequences, and distilled what was really its essence all along. So when you watch Miley Cyrus again, squatting and thrusting and unfurling her tongue, know that you are not watching a garish display of celebrity sexuality in cable television’s race to the bottom, but natural selection at its finest.

Posted on 28 August 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 10

Remember When There Was No Pope?

When I was a boy I decided that I wanted to be the pope. To show my enthusiasm, I pretended to play the part for a while. I locked myself in my room, and when my parents knocked on my door to tell me it was time for dinner I would blow black smoke at them. Except since I was too young to play with matches, instead of black smoke I had to sprinkle the black crayon shavings that collected below the crayon sharpener that was built into the base of my giant box of crayons. The white crayon was never pristine, so when this cardinal college of one had made its decision, I had to blow bubbles instead of white shavings, and hope the faithful would forgive me.

I rolled the Sunday comics into a tall hat and wore my Superman robe all day. I walked around, blessing my parents, and making changes to the canonical laws that governed our household. I would no longer drink milk by itself, but only in combination with a suitable cereal such as Cheerios or Kix. Chuckles, the gummy candy that came in five equal pieces, each of a distinct color and flavor, would have to be consumed according to a rigid formula: black, green, orange, yellow, and finally red. I would wear pajamas with feet on weekends only.

My parents and hangers-on had some challenges with these abrupt changes, but eventually their faith gave them the strength to adjust. And just in time, for while chewing a red Chuckle one afternoon, I decided that it was time for me to inject myself into a controversy.

At school a battle had been raging for months over which version of a particular toy sword was the superior weapon in battle. One version had a silver plastic blade and gold plastic handle. The other version had a gold plastic blade and silver plastic handle. The two sides would battle it out in the middle of the classroom during morning recess, and our teacher refused to get involved in anything that did not involve paste.

I could see that divine reason was needed. Taking burnt sienna crayon to a piece of manila construction paper, I issued a papal bull that deposed the leader of the silver blade army and the leader of the gold blade army. I could see that both leaders were contemplating an alliance against me, but by serendipity they and their followers were whisked away to the nurse’s office to be checked for lice.

During outdoor recess I insisted that I be placed inside of a clear plastic box in case any one wanted to draw His Holiness into a game of dodgeball. Amidst the kids skipping rope and plummeting from jungle gyms to the lush concrete below, I sat in my plastic box and read Pope Gregory I’s commentary on Where the Wild Things Are.

My papacy was not immune to scandal. The classroom had only so many toy trucks to go around before boys had to dip into the far less popular toy vacuum cleaners. I was caught selling my influence over distribution of the toy trucks for chocolate milk, and as penance had to pay a large settlement to the families and then sit in the corner.

But at home I still reigned supreme in my regal vestments and pajamas with feet. I looked with pride upon my flock, even if it did consist mainly of stuffed animals and He-Man figurines. I believed that being pope was my future, and that absolutely nothing would get in my way as long as my faith remained strong. And strong my faith remained…right up until the moment that my parents dropped me off at Hebrew School.

Posted on 14 March 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 14

Remember Twinkies?

The archaeologists were done for the day. It was getting dark and Happy Hour at the Drunken Pick Axe lasted just until 7:00 p.m., after which time the drinks were served only in plastic cups, a prospect most of the dig team found unrefined. The young graduate student, formally named Byron Russelbeard III, but who had somehow earned the nickname Spacecake, was putting away the tools when he noticed a little yellow object protruding from the inner wall of the large hole in the ground.

He stuck his head up out of the hole and waved for the others to come over, but they responded with pantomimed drinking motions, and kept walking away.

Spacecake turned back to the object. Proper procedure would have been to note its size, color, and position in the log book and then cover it up with a paper towel. But his laptop had already started downloading the latest version of iTunes, and paper had been extinct for many years.

And Spacecake was curious. The yellow object was wrapped in a clear plastic shell that was malleable to the touch, and Spacecake was induced with a sudden desire to eat it.

“That’s crazy,” he said to himself, but still the object called to him. Inside of a minute Spacecake had dug out the object and placed it in his pocket and was walking away with a nonchalant whistle he had seen someone do in a movie.

Spacecake returned to his room and took the object out of his pocket and examined it with his penlight. He turned on his pocket recorder.

“Oblong object,” he spoke into the recorder, “about six inches long, a continuous height of two inches, and a continuous width of slightly less than two inches. Appears to be made of a yellow cake-like substance and wrapped in thin transparent plastic…late 20th or early 21st Century.” He examined the object’s underside. “Ventral surface shows three white dots, regularly spaced lengthwise.” He looked closer. “The white substance is creamy. I want to eat it.”

He snapped off the recorder. What was the last thing he had said? That he wanted to eat it? He replayed the recording. Yes, he had said he wanted to eat the object.

“But that’s crazy,” he said. “I mean, it’s an artifact, buried under earth for many—”

There was a noise outside. Kind of like a scratching, like someone—or something—was trying to find a way inside. Spacecake dropped the recorder on his bed and covered up the object. He opened the door and looked outside.

“Hello?” he said into the darkness. “Who’s there?” He could hear his heart pounding and he was sweating. He shut the door slowly.

“Probably just the wind,” Spacecake said aloud, and laughed nervously. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled.

He uncovered the object. The yellow cake—he was convinced now that it was cake—glowed under the small light and Spacecake was again filled with a desire to eat it. That would be a serious breach of archaeological ethics. For years he had studied and worked to get this chance to be on the most elite team of Apatosaurus diggers in the world. Taking the object out of the hole was bad enough. To unwrap it would throw all that hard work away.

Spacecake unwrapped the object, peeled back the plastic, and took a bite. Oh ecstasy! He had never tasted anything like it. It was pure sweetness with no nutritional value. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever tasted. His mind was so overwhelmed by the explosion of taste that he did not hear the door open and the footsteps coming up behind him and the blunt object hitting him over the head. As all went black, Spacecake was still moving the yellow cake and white cream around his mouth and savoring the taste.

* * *

“Whatever it was, it was quick and painless,” the detective said, staring at Spacecake’s lifeless body lying on the floor. “Look at that smile on his face.”

“But the configuration of his hand…it looks like he had been holding something when…when it happened,” the program director said.

“Maybe that was what his killer was after.”

“But what could it be?”

“I guess we’ll never know,” the detective said.

The program director nodded, took one last look at what had once been his most promising graduate student, and walked towards the door. The detective held the door open, and then shut it gently behind them, leaving the body completely alone…save for the small, unnoticed, pocket-sized recorder laying on the bed.

Posted on 25 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 15

Remember When Black Friday Took Place on Friday?

The young nation was divided. The Black Friday purists who insisted on Black Friday sales not starting until the morning of Black Friday had been unable—or unwilling—to reconcile with the block of states who insisted on starting Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving, no matter how much cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie still lay uneaten on the table, or how many relatives still passed out on the couch.

Abraham Lincoln had run for President on the Purist ticket, and his very election brought the dispute to a fevered pitch. Shortly after his inauguration speech, in which the ol’ Turkey Splitter insisted that he had “no intention” of interfering with the institution of big box stores, the “Target” states, as they came to be known, declared their secession from the Purists and went back to greasing the wheels of their shopping carts.

Lincoln, seeing secession as unacceptable, and worrying that all the stove pipe hats would be gone from the shelves by the time Mary Todd hit the aisles at 5 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, ordered the Union army to stop the Target States of America from seceding. The Union had more ammunition, more railroads, and more coupons from Bed Bath & Beyond which were used to equip the soldiers with much needed towel warmers and memory foam slippers. But the Target States had a passion for shopping and a general dislike of family events and an army of stock boys armed with box cutters ready to meet the Union forces.

The war dragged on and Lincoln needed a solution. He had a meeting planned that morning with Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, and Lincoln paced his lanky frame about the Oval Office, preparing himself. He tugged at his beard. Mary Todd had wanted him to shave it for the holidays. Said it was too scraggly.

“Over my dead body,” Lincoln said to himself, and double-checked the bowl of candy on his desk. Yes, there were plenty of green apple Jolly Ranchers.

“I don’t think there’s any other way out of this war than to strengthen the blockade of the stores,” Stanton said, tugging at his own scraggly beard. “They’ve pushed us to this point, and there’s no way I’m missing the Cowboys game to go shopping.”

Lincoln thought about it, tugging at his scraggly beard again. The two men tugged at their scraggly beards.

“Violence is not the answer,” Lincoln said at once. “I should know. I used to hunt vampires.”

“But without violence, I won’t have a job,” Stanton said. “How are you going to keep those Target States from being open on Thanksgiving without violence?”

Lincoln crossed his long legs, and leaned forward, and rested his chin in the crook between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m going to make a speech,” he said, and, dismissing the Secretary of War, went to go sharpen his pencil.

The next day President Lincoln stood before a crowd in Leesburg, Virginia, known for its many outlet stores, and gave what would become known as the Leesburg Address.

“Four score and seven years ago,” he began, “I received a gift card to a well-known retailer, and now the retailer is telling me that the card has expired.

“But that is all past. We are now engaged in a great civil war over whether it is proper that stores open for Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving. It is not a question of whether a nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that it is never too early to start Christmas shopping, can long endure the helpings of turkey and inappropriate questions from distant relatives, like ‘When are you two getting married?’ or ‘Don’t you think it’s time to do something with your life?’ or ‘Why can’t you put that device down when I’m talking to you?’

“Rather, the question is whether one can really call it Black Friday if it starts on Thursday.”

The crowd stood stunned. Abraham Lincoln had once again spoken an incontrovertible truth. It was impossible to have Black Friday on Thanksgiving, which had always been a Thursday, and always would be a Thursday. And until everyone recognized that truth, the civil war would never end.

So the name was changed to “Black Thursday,” and the stores offered turkey sandwiches and cranberry sauce at the register, and the States were once again United—now and forever, one and inseparable!

Posted on 16 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 13

Remember Election Night?

I’m watching a flat screen television, and on the flat screen television is another flat screen television that shows an image of all the states. Some states are blue, some states are red, but all states are peppered with little dots that denote locations of Denny’s. Next to the flat screen—the one on TV, not the one in my living room—stands a news reporter.

He touches one of the states, and the screen zooms in so that the state fills the screen and now all that state’s counties can be seen, some colored blue, and some colored red. He touches one of the counties and the screen zooms in yet again so that houses can be seen, some blue and some red. He touches one of the houses and now the rooms of the house fill the screen, some blue and some red.

He touches one of the rooms, and the room grows large so that now two people in the room can be seen. One person is blue, the other red. Then he touches one of the people, and now we can see inside the person’s brain. Some of the brain cells are blue, and some of them are red. Most of them are green.

A second news reporter comes over and tries to touch the screen. The first reporter slaps the hand away.

“Only I can touch the magic screen!” the first reporter says, and the awkward moment that follows is mercifully interrupted by an exciting ritual. There are loud noises and fireworks, dancers and clowns, fire-eaters on stilts and acrobats, and above them all a graphic that reads “Projection!” It is announced that one of the states is projected to be painted in a certain color even though only 2% of the votes have been counted.

The channel goes back to the reporters. The first reporter toggles the screen between this election and the election of 1840, when there were fewer states and more log cabins. The second reporter has a black eye but tells us that we are now going to hear from a correspondent in one of the voting precincts.

The image shifts to a large cat with a poofy face. It has green eyes and white whiskers that radiate in perfect symmetry. Behind the cat are people trying to clear a paper jam from the vote-card reader.

The second reporter speaks to the cat. “Tell us, what are you seeing in terms of voter turnout?”

The cat licks one of its paws, and then rubs the paw over its face a few times in a circular motion. Then it looks back at the screen and blinks.

“Yes, that seems to be the story we’re hearing all over the nation tonight.”

My TV goes back to the first reporter with the magic screen. He is showing what the electoral situation might look like if Florida was rotated 90 degrees towards the Gulf of Mexico.

Then the image on my TV shifts to the headquarters of one of the candidates. From the sequence of percentages that flash at the bottom of the screen, I can tell, using a slide rule, that this candidate is about to have a lot of free time. But the people at the campaign headquarters still wave their arms and go “Whoooo” when they see themselves on the big screen.

I eat another piece of leftover Halloween candy. There is a small mound of wrappers next to the bowl.

We’re back to the first reporter with the magic screen again. The screen is frozen at the election of 2612, with water covering most of the coastal states, and their votes tallied by counting the bubbles that rise to the surface. The second reporter is trying to help by sticking a pen into the restart button at base of the magic screen, a terrifying treatment for the first reporter, who apparently forgot to save his work.

Posted on 9 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 6

Remember Life Before Catastrophic Hurricanes?

It was Sunday morning and I was looking forward to drinking coffee from my “We Are Happy to Serve You” cup. The design is the same as the paper cups that are seen all over the City of New York, and someone had the brilliant idea of putting the design onto a ceramic cup. I only use this cup on the weekends because I want the weekends to feel different from the weekdays, when I drink coffee from brown or beige mugs that do not bear writing in an Attic font.

I was about to take a sip when my wife asked me if our flashlights worked.

“Flashlights?” I hadn’t used a flashlight since we were dating, when I would woo her with shadow puppets. I remembered that we had received a flashlight as a wedding present, from the Martha Stewart collection to match our sugar bowl and serving plate. But it had been some time since I’d seen it and I would have to google its whereabouts.

The flashlight did not work. I would not have expected anything less. I unscrewed the top and shook out the D-cell batteries. One of the batteries fell to the floor and just narrowly missed shattering my toe. Heavy things, those D-cells.

“I found the flashlight,” I announced to my wife, and, my work done, returned to my Grecian mug.

“Does it work?”

“Work? Of course not. The batteries are dead.”

“Well don’t you think you should get more batteries?”

“Does this need to be done today? There are a few odes I’m planning on reading after I drink my coffee.”

“Really? Are you not aware that there is a massive hurricane that’s supposed to be hitting us tomorrow? It’s supposed to be a once a century kind of storm.”

“Oh, like that storm they were waiting for in Point Break?”

“I think I’m reaching my point break.”

I placed my weekend jeans over my weekend pyjama pants and drove to the supermarket. Let’s get this battery thing over with, I thought, and then I can get back to enjoying my life. I found the wall of battery-packs. And looked. And looked. There were double As, and triple As, and those rectangular-shaped 9 volts that no one uses. There were microscopic batteries for hearing aids and batteries that looked like a triple A cut in half. But no D-cells. The metal hanging racks with little D-cell signs above them were gaping holes like its teeth were knocked out.

And then I realized. My greedy neighbors had selfishly cleaned out the D-cell batteries. I looked some more, hoping against hope. There were C-cell batteries that looked like D-cells during their adolescence.

I went to another supermarket, to convenience stores, to electronics stores, to the mall, to hot dog stands. Batteries, batteries everywhere, but not one D-cell in the land. I was in a waking nightmare. I could not go home and face my wife without a D-cell. I had been asked to slay the dragon and the dragon was still out there terrorizing the village.

I sat down on the curb by the hot dog stand, and looked up at the sky, praying for deliverance. I noticed a man walking, carrying a plastic bag. The bag had a bulge at the bottom, and from the shape and orientation of the bulge I just knew it contained D-cell batteries. I approached the man.

“Please, sir. Can you help me?”

“I already gave at the office.”

“No, no. I don’t want money. I need batteries.”

His face turned to even greater disgust. He started walking.

“Please, sir,” I said, “I’ll do anything. I’ll give you any amount of money. I just can’t go home without D-cell batteries.”

“You married?”

“Yes.”

“And let me guess, you waited all weekend, with a hurricane coming, to buy batteries for your flashlight that you probably never test, and now all the stores are out of D-cells, and you’re going to be in trouble with your wife if you come home without any D-cell batteries for the flashlights. Is that about the long and the short of it?”

“You got it,” I said.

He smiled. A heartwarming smile, as if my tale of woe had brought back a cherished memory, perhaps a memory of his own first years of marriage, when he was young and poor and never tested flashlights until the storm clouds were getting off the exit. I could see I was working a change in him. My prayers had been answered. He was going to let me have the batteries. There was goodness left in humanity! I wondered if he was going to mark them up or would sell them to me at face value. I hoped he had change for a twenty.

“Awfully sorry,” he said. “Hope it works out for you.” And he walked away.

Posted on 2 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 15

Remember When Debates Involved Debating?

When I was in ninth grade and it was announced that we were going to attend a debate by the two candidates for class president, I was surprised to hear that we even had a class president. Until that moment I had thought our class was governed by an oligarchy of characters from video games who directed the teachers to make us read things like Beowulf.

So one day, instead of spending third period in math class and discussing how a line was equal to itself, we were corralled into the auditorium so that two of our peers could talk about how they were different from each other.

The two candidates stood at podiums on the stage – one on the left, and one on the right. The candidate on the left, a very nice young woman who until then I had known only as the girl with the purple school bag, was the incumbent president. The young man on the right – rumored to be a jerk but good at math – her challenger.

After the two candidates each made introductory remarks, displaying their talent for speaking in a monotone directly into a piece of paper, students were allowed to ask questions. The first question was, “As class president, how would you create more activities for students?”

The left-hand candidate had the chance to speak first, and she said, “Thank you for your question. Activities are a very important part of a student’s life, and I know that you’re hurting for some activities. I know what it feels like to have nothing to do. Last year my parents took away my television privileges because they caught me smoking a cigarette. All afternoon I had nothing to do except stare at a blank wall. Eventually my parents realized how important television was to me and let me watch it again, and all was right. So I know what you mean, and when I’m class president I’m going to make sure that students have lots of activities.”

Then the right-hand candidate interjected, “But student activities declined by over twenty percent since you took office at the end of eighth grade! When I’m class president, we’re going to reverse that trend.”

Then the left-hand candidate said, “That’s not true. You are not using accurate statistics. You should do your homework.”

“I don’t need to do my homework,” he replied, “I’ve always been great at math. I’m in the honors class.”

Then the teacher-moderator stopped the arguing and invited the next question from a student.

“What are you going to do about the quality of the school lunch?”

The right-hand candidate said, “Thank you for your question. For years we have been under the oppression of the school lunch. There is a central authority that decides for us what we should be eating, and it isn’t good! When I’m class president, my plan is to create a marketplace of lunch vendors, so that students can decide for themselves what they want to eat.”

Then the left-hand candidate said, “Privatizing the school lunch might be nice if you get a big allowance. But for middle-allowance students, a school lunch marketplace is only going to make an expensive lunch even more expensive. The answer is to make the existing school lunch taste better. And I’m going to do that as class president.”

“And how are you going to do that?” asked the teacher-moderator.

“Oh, you want me to elaborate?” asked the incumbent. “We were told we wouldn’t have to elaborate.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. It was time to ask these candidates a question that was relevant to our lives. Activities? School lunches? These things were not important. No matter who won this election, we would still have to go to class. We would still have to get changed for gym. We would still have to read Beowulf. Before I knew it, I was standing at the microphone, clearing my throat, and asking my question.

“What exactly does the class president do?” I asked.

The candidates looked stunned for a moment. I could hear some laughter behind me, and I sensed that I had asked the single question that everyone had wanted to ask. My heart filled with such joy I felt close to tears.

And the next thing I knew, I was being escorted out of the auditorium while another student asked a question, and the candidates were articulating their five-point plans for implementing a more convenient schedule of late buses.

Posted on 19 October 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 17