Polly Glott stode quickly out of the house, cursing slightly under her breath. Late again! But that midnight conference call with Kunming meant she’s overslept, despite her best efforts. Would she make her 7:00 a.m. meeting? She quickened her step.
She entered the garage, was biometrically waived into the car by its security system, waited a few moments while the car’s V2G electric system unplugged itself from the house, then hurried the vehicle onto the road. “Late” she barked, and a soothing voice from the dash replied: “We’ll travel in the fast-fee lanes, skip the usual morning call to your sister, and start with your phonemail immediately. Special instructions?”
Polly paused, thankful she’d long ago linked her calendar to the car’s GPS system: “Music. One song. Latest downloads. Now.” (OK, here the car either downloads from her main database elsewhere, or links to her chip implant, the “key” to her database)
The slow beat song over, Polly stated, more calmly: “Mail from Michael first.” Saying the name of her son, a freshman at the prestigious Mumbai Film and Total Media Institute, brought an automatic smile to her face. And here was a new message from him, with a visual flashed on her front windshield when the AutoPilot determined it safe to do so. Her son’s signature—written vertically? “The latest thing” his message proclaimed, a fad started by some of his Chinese classmates that was already spreading to uni’s everywhere.
Polly just shook her head. Wasn’t it enough that she’d had to stay up past midnight talking with Kunming? Were they taking over our very names now? “Well,” she comforted herself, “It takes four times as many of them just to keep up with us.”
And that brought her back to the work at hand. “Arrival time?” she asked. “Seven-fifteen, based on current traffic conditions. That’s 29 more minutes,” came the reply.
Polly grimaced, decided against sending a message about a delay, and picked up her phonemail pace, dispatching the most pressing matters quickly. Then she contemplated the morning ahead of her. Who would have thought that after the real estate bust of 2006, Chinese companies would have bought up so much for so little, grafted their millennia-old village culture onto the vague baby-boomer yarning for “community” and begun practically minting money with a whole new kind of residential development? She shrugged off this question, much as she’d had to shrug off her previous career as a real estate agent.
Turning her thoughts to this upcoming meeting, Polly began preparing for this latest baby boom couple wanting to talk with a Third Age Consultant about the “interdependent residential component” of this “most rewarding time of their lives.” Arriving just on time thanks to the car’s last minute choice of alternate route, Polly guided her vehicle into the parking space, and with a pleasant business smile on her face, walked up to greet her perspective clients.
…Nigeria to leave OPEC… G10 to discuss how to relieve Africa debt crisis… Meathead to announce run for Presidency…
The radio blared that day’s headlines as I rolled the car into the filling station spot. Petrol was pushing $3 a liter again and comparisons to the oil crisis of 1970s became the topic of choice around the FOX News/ CNN/ CurrenTV talking heads circuit. Concierge Charles off the OnStar pointed me to this ChevronUnocal off the freeway.
The uniformed attendant popped up from his booth and put the petrol nozzle into the car’s gas tank. Some tell me of a time this “full service” was a luxury. The series of explosions at filling stations in St. Louis and Iowa City and the rising fear of neighborhood terrorist attacks made it now a necessity to remain in the car.
…Fat Britney chosen for stamp honor… the Neptunes to be inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame…
The full tank should last me another 1300km. The $42 total was debited automatically from my American Express Wallet account. Virtual electronic payments really was becoming as useable and reliable as advertised with their updated slogan, “Leave home without it”.
These weekend trips to Grandma’s house seem to be the only time we spend together as a family anymore,” mused Mark. He watched from the rear seats as his 12-year-old son, Calvin, at age 12, called up a record of his school week to play it on the front screen. He skipped ahead to the more interesting parts, in which he got praise from his teacher and did well in gym class, and zoomed in on his friends to tell his parents about them. Mark and his wife nodded approvingly and marked a few spots to discuss later. Shelley wasn’t showing much interest in her older brother’s activities; she was listening to her favorite pop star’s daily home broadcast on her personal media player.
The car was zipping merrily along I-5 without much help from anyone inside. Traffic was light – Mark had paid extra to ensure priority routing on the fastest highway – and the other vehicles were staggered evenly across the two lanes. He saw a sporty two-seater with a few friends engaged in some kind of interactive game and a sedan with a businessman and an office rig, as well as other families watching movies and sleeping and eating.
As they neared Los Angeles, the fuel gauge chimed. Mark ignored it; the car would choose the best place to stop unless he gave it more instruction. His wife was catching up on a book, his daughter was curled up next to him asleep with her headphones, and his son was blasting virtual alien carjackers with a teammate in another car. It was almost too bad they had arrived.
I hate waking up to cold and darkness. It isn’t as grim as it sounds. I just got stuck in Minneapolis. I play “Boatdrinks” all day long, in the house, in the car, in my frozen head.
We broke down and bought a new car last year. The other one was fine, but if I’m stuck in Minneapolis, I told him that I needed $10,000 for a Jimmy Buffett room and $30,000 for one of those cars that heats up in the morning while you’re brushing your teeth.
He installed some fancy sound system. I don’t know anything about it. I couldn’t work the remote control on the television ten years ago, and I can’t work the sound system now. I’ve just given up. It doesn’t really matter anyway. We don’t spend that much time in the car. Back when we were having “serious” discussions about our priorities, we decided to live within walking distance of our work places. Unless the temperature is absurdly low, I can walk to my office in ten minutes. Besides, half the time we work from home. I do drive my children to school.
There is a control panel on the console. It has a digital screen with forty-three choices. I know which one turns on the radio, which one stores my Roadfood maps, and the one that adjusts the heat and humidity. I had the humidity feature added when we moved to this godforsaken state. Everyone up here thinks I’m crazy, but a friend of my parents heard about this internet site that sells the components, so I gave the address to the dealership, and my service liaison checked it out, ordered the parts, and coordinated the installation. We like this particular dealership because it’s open minded about things like this. It has to be. No one can keep up with the pace of progress. I’m just glad that the dealership has been so accommodating. I’ve never cared about brand loyalty, but I do remember good and bad experiences, and they’ve saved my life with this humidity thing. I never know what I’ll want from day to day, and I never know what they’ll come up with next. I do know, however, that the next time I get some weird desire to have some random new technology in my car, I can call Teddy over at Emmett Motors, and he’ll do the research and come up with the closest solution.
I am really tired. I’ve been up since 5 am, and now it is 2:30 pm. I am supposed to pay some bills, book tickets for next month’s conference, renew my library books, find my college roommate’s new email address, and do a literature search for that book chapter. My children need to be picked up at school, driven to baseball and ballet, and then escorted home. We don’t live very far from their school, or the practice field, or the studio, so on most days we walk. It saves on gas, and it’s good exercise. But today I am really tired, and if I can take care of all these tasks between now and 5 pm, when their activities end, then I can take a nap before dinner. It’s all online stuff -- my husband would just do all of this at practice, on his laptop, since we get pretty good wireless connections around our neighborhood, or on that little gadget that is his phone and calendar and notepad all together. I can’t concentrate with all that noise around, baseballs or ballerinas alike, and I’m not supposed to be using my laptop too much anyway, since I’m having back, neck, and wrist problems. As for that little phone gadget, I need a bigger screen, or my eyes hurt. Fortunately, I can just take the car today. With a sincere apology to the environment, I drive three blocks to the school, five blocks to the baseball field, and two blocks to the ballet studio. After I see Virginia inside, I give a fake smile to the evil blond soccer moms and return to the serenity of my car. I’ve charged the extra battery, so I can run the air conditioning while I sit in the parking lot. I push the button that sets my seat to the proper position – back from the wheel, with lower back support and proper positioning for my arms and wrists. I turn on the computer, pull out the monitor, unfold the keyboard, load my home desktop, and get to work. It is quiet and cool, and I actually prefer this to home, where the phone rings, the delivery men pound on the door, and the dogs slip and slide over the newly waxed floors. Yes, I keep my cell phone off in the afternoons. The time slips by, and when 5 pm rolls around, I’ve finished my list of tasks. Virginia tiptoes out to the car, we pick up Emmett, and we pull into our driveway. Dinner isn’t until 8 pm, so I set Virginia and Emmett up with homework and Helga, their afternoon nanny, and I crawl into bed. I need the next three hours of sleep to ensure that I can be awake and engaged at dinner with my husband and my children. We keep up this frantic pace during the week so that we can have our weekends completely free, and I wouldn’t be able to do this if I didn’t use my car as my refuge and my personal study during all that waiting around that accompanies the parenting process.
“I’m late!” whispered Cindy to her two best friends. Jane and Vince shook their heads. “We warned you about staying out here alone with Jimmy Masters after the credits. Strength in numbers and all that.”
Two more cars joined the circle, and ten oily teenagers began to negotiate in the empty lot behind Wal-Mart.
“I’d like to see that old one.”
“Oh, that narrows it down.”
After a handful of suggestions, Cindy and her friends took a vote, and the first “New Doctor Who” movie, the one starring Christopher Eccleston, was chosen. Lane ran a search on her iView, selected the widescreen version, and confirmed that the device was communicating clearly with the computer in Harry’s new black truck. Harry unloaded the screen from the back of his truck, and Sarah helped him set it up about twenty feet in front of the truck. Harry pushed the button, and the movie started up. Everyone hurried to fix their earpieces; the neighbors had called the police before for noise violations.
Sixteen blocks away, Cindy’s mother pressed the red button on the keyboard and nodded in satisfaction when she saw a green line light up around the tiny square on the computer screen. Cindy’s mother was relieved to see that her daughter was at the empty lot where the neighborhood kids gathered to watch movies. Certainly she wouldn’t get into any trouble there.
I’ve been up for seventy-two hours. I’ve taken four exams, submitted a final paper, and packed for the holidays. They’ve kicked me out of the dorms, and although I know I shouldn’t be driving in this state, I’m not spending a hundred bucks to check into a motel. Besides, it’s only five hours home. Fortunately, there are options. I load up my car’s monitoring system and select “red alert.” It sounds really grim, but it means that the car and the person on the other end of the system will be keeping a very close eye on my driving – my speed, if I’m staying in my lane, if I’ve stopped every forty-five minutes for a short break. I get an insurance discount for faithful use of this service. If my driving raises an eyebrow, a little red light blinks on the display. Two eyebrows, and I get a phone call from the company. Three eyebrows, and I’m directed to drive to the next motel with a vacancy – they call ahead, book a room at a special rate, and inform me which exit to take. I have to stop, because they are monitoring me, and they will call the highway patrol if I don’t stop at the designated motel. What’s more, the car won’t start again for the next ten hours unless I call for special permission. But they’ll bill me for the motel, and I want to avoid that unless it’s absolutely necessary, so I call up my mother on the videophone. Her shaky but unmistakable image appears next to me, and we spend the next few hours making Christmas lists. The motion next to me and the crisp sound of her voice is somewhat like having a passenger in the car with me, and it keeps me awake on that long, boring stretch of highway home.
It is a warm late summer afternoon, in Waltham Massachusetts. Elisha and his 67 year old wife Marie are driving to the local Wal-Mart to get inspired for the decoration for his 70 years birthday that comes up next Saturday. Maria always hates sitting down in the living room to order some stuff at this now uncircumventible custumerbased pricing websites that ship their stuff from somewhere across the nation. She never likes the make of the delivered stuff and despite all this VR animation and the convenience of having everything placed on their display in their living room table. And they just like to be active and meet others at Wal-Mart.
They like driving around in their new luxury CARe-taker as it is just a better extension of all the comfort they are used to at home. After sitting in these new fancy massage seats she always feels as relaxed as she does when she was spending a wealth to her masseur. Especially as now half of their monthly spendings go into healthcare they are happy that their car helps them to constantly monitoring their health status, giving them the security and care they always longed for. It just feels good to know that the car directly connects them with their primary care physician in case any health values rise above their individual thresholds. And thank god their PCP is not one of these overcautious ones and gave them quite a bit of freedom in not setting their thresholds to tight.
Elisha always likes to tell this story that HE found their new PCP while he was waiting in the parking a lot of his wife PCP as their old PCP just never delivered his appointments right in time. What a blessing that he has now the possibility to get information not only about their health status but also about the opinion of virtually every specialist in the world by the press of a button be it at home or in their new CARe-taker.
It is late Sunday afternoon and Katie hits the junction to Bakersfield on her way on the five. Another 100 miles left to their home in Santa Monica. Her husband Mike passed away 4 years ago after he got hit in an accident at a construction site in Europe. He was one of the engineers helping the Europeans to build their new ultra fast trains. She always told him that she’s not believing in this public transportation thing. And than it hit him of all people!
The only thing she does not have to worry about is her livelihood as Mike left a fortune. So she’s driving in her new Mercedes-Benz Grand Sports Tourer with her 12 and 7 year old kids Dan and his sister Max, lost in thoughts about the past and the future of her beloved kids.
Dan is finishing his maths assignments for Monday morning, that he has to send to his math teacher before midnight. He is consulting with other friends sitting at home over the team work application that his school sponsors beginning in junior high. Every time he starts chatting with other girls driving by (and then splurging to his friends at home sending them the girls avatar) his sister squeals to his Mom. He hates her for that and decided not to talk to her anymore for the whole drive. She’s playing this location oriented quiz against other 7 year olds driving in the vicinity. Every time she doesn’t know the answer she asks him, but he resolves to stay steadfast to declines every approach of her until they are at home. Katie is happy that she can trust the game manufacturer so that they learn at least something while quarreling with each other.
I joined the SmartClub. It sounds really stupid, and I generally try to avoid helping companies build massive, monopolistic empires, but in this case, it was both the smart and the responsible thing to do.
Here’s how it works: I join SmartClub – a division of Prairie Motors, Inc., the biggest car manufacturer in America. I lease my cars from Prairie Motors dealerships. I get quite the discount as well, being a SmartClub member. They customize each and every car – keep all my preferences in the computer, although I can edit them whenever I want. Every three years, I turn in the old car and get a new one. This way, I not only keep up to date with all the latest innovations, but my cars are always super-efficient as well. Here’s Part Two: I travel ALL the time. Mostly work, but sometimes for vacation as well. Airfares are out of control, and to be quite frank, I’m sick to death of airplanes. That’s where SmartClub comes in. Prairie Motors spent a decade putting together a network of high-speed trains that will take you across our great nation. As a SmartClub member, I get discounts on all my ticket purchases, plus frequent upgrades to GeniusClass seats. I do feel bad about Amtrak going under, but let’s face it, they just couldn’t make the grade. Now here’s Part Three: our country is both massive and mighty suburban. Even with a network of high-speed trains, that still leaves a large percentage of the population, of the small towns, and of the great outdoors quite inaccessible. When I want to take a train from Chicago to Seattle, I take a train from Chicago to Seattle, and I can take public transportation in and around both cities. When I need to go from Chicago to fly-fishing in Montana or from Chicago to Bucksnort, TN, I can’t take a high-speed train directly there. So here’s the SmartClub part – I take a high-speed train as close as I can get – i.e., to the nearest major population center – and then I walk straight from the train to the SmartClub Rental Center. They give me a car, at a significantly reduced rate, with as many of my computer-listed preferences as is possible, given their stock on-hand. Instead of cutting back on travel, as experts predicted twenty years ago, I travel more, because SmartClub makes it affordable, easy, and enjoyable.
I hate my car. I hate that I can’t go anywhere without it. I hate that it reminds me I’m old.
Like everyone over 70, my HMO insists I take a thorough health exam at least once a month in order to keep my premiums down. Meanwhile, my auto insurance provider insists that I get the all clear from a registered doctor or nurse at least once a week. How “convenient” that one insurance company owns the other.
Getting into the driver’s seat, I insert my Id-Stick(TM) ("More you than you (TM)") into the port. The car engine starts (seat adjusts its angle, moves forward 15 cm, with a jolt, rearview and wing mirrors adjust to my preferred settings with an electric drone--Betty doesn't drive that often, just often enough to mess up my settings), but before we can go anywhere I have to go through the old drill. The car’s Autodoc(TM)checks insulin levels, blood pressure, heart rate, eye sight, and hearing. The whole process takes about 2 minutes, but it seems like an eternity. If I hadn’t had that crash with those brats 6 months ago, I’d only have to go through this once every 2 months.
The car admonishes me (in clipped tones that are meant to inspire confidence – I wish I’d paid for the upgrade, I hate New England accents) for not having had my eye glasses prescription changed since I last drove, and adjusts the size of the HUD to better suit me. “For my safety and reassurance” the car is going to give me directions. “Lane change in 80 meters … 40 meters,” “Decelerate to cruising speed,” and so on. I’m going to have to put up with the car’s orders all the way to Seattle.
I hate my car.