It started with an Apple IIc. Why II? Why c? Why a lower case c? An Anthropologist not yet born will be challenged to figure it out some day far out into the future. I won't be here to see it, but what I would give to come back just for that day. A whippersnapper, newly minted PhD in hand, uncovering the birth of my computer age in a landfill long since forgotten. You just have to smile at the quizzical look on the face of Dr. Why Did They Do It This Way? First the Apple. Then the double II. And, alas the c, the lower case c. Surely it will warrant a headline story in the Gallactica World News:
It was a two thousand five hundred dollar investment, that Apple IIc. No hard drive. One floppy disk drive. A symphony of disk exchanges to perform the simplest of simple tasks. A1+1 was my favorite. Type in the first cell. Hold down the Open Apple key. Touch c (There's that c thing again). Copy down 100 cells and watch. Magically one is added to one to make two. Then, one is added to two to make three. And, one is added to three to make four, until 100 magically appeared in cell A100. Boring today. Mesmerizing then. It consumed hours of thought, wonder and amazement. No drug could ever match the euphoria it produced. No twenty-second century Anthropologist will ever fully understand it. It was circa 1984. It rivaled the 1960's. You just had to be there to understand. You had to live it to get it.
But (or maybe it should be butt), now the world has decided that running water and memory chips should live in joyous harmony in a public restroom near you. (Is it restroom or bathroom? Lavatory or privy? Not sure. Not concerned.) Lest you miss the point, I must digress.
A new building has risen from the abandoned strawberry fields in Anaheim, just south of the perpetually clogged 91 Freeway (Why 91? Again, I digress.) The Architect was surely a bright young person. Surely he or she will leave behind sufficient genes to create a brilliant young Anthropologist generations from now. Obviously raised on an Apple, but accepting of the diversity of a PC, this young Architect enveloped the entire edifice in computerized ecstasy from guard gate to indoor outhouse.
It is cool that the Security Guard uses the latest Bill Gates' technology to print not only your name, but the name of your host on a stick this to your chest name tag. That same Security Guard touches with the greatest of ease a button that signals the iron gate before you to magically open as though your motorized chariot bears a regal leader to visit. No less impressive is to watch the front door respond to the command of a magic card wanded before it within seconds of being released from the warmth and love of the belly that it hangs before on a lanyard around the neck of your host.
It all makes sense. Perfect sense. The computer generated name tag. The computer controlled door opener. The computer controlled LCD on the wall. The computer etched images of precious symbols of the past hanging in the entry way. God must have wanted it this way. It is far too mysterious to be anything but divine. Surely it did not emanate from the likes of Wozniak, Jobs, or Gates in the dawn of microchip creation. Surely not. Surely so. I accept. I kneel down in humble recognition of human accomplishment beyond all possibility, much less expectation.
But now, venture with me to the hallway. Turn to the right. Then turn right again. Stop. Do not push upon the door. How primitive to think of doing that! How preposterous in this computer age! Do not think of entering this sanctum where washed hands were once an assumption and now are logarithm gone wild. This is it. The bathroom where there is but one place to sit. The washroom where there is only a bowl for washing two hands at a time. The privy where the unsold door frame allows weird, curious strangers to glimpse at your inner most privacies against your will.
No. Do not touch that door to enter. Let computers do computer work. Wand your hand. Stand aside. Await your majesty, whilst the door respondeth to your molecular energy. Be patient. You are human. The door is digital. It computes. It counts zeroes and ones to sense your sweat producing human body. It will open. It will open for you. March through it to your spot. Take the position. Deposit the processed product of your last meal for transport to the bowels of the earth. Step away. Step away as a microchip senses your departure. It will signal an electrical switch which will open a mechanical (imagine that - mechanical) water valve to wash your biodegradable body substance on an underground journey back to the sea salt world of Flipper. (Curiously, your Charmin must still be acquired with manual dexterity. I guess Mr. Whipple missed the eighties and the wonders of electromagnetic wizardry.)
Move now to the glistening wash basin. Work up a slight cosmic aura to signal first your need for soap. Wait as the computer gods dribble a precise drop of cleansing solution to your waiting palms. Beckon now the flow of fresh, clean H2O to slowly lather your digits to a sanitized solution conclusion that would bring Dr. Kildare back from the grave.
You are not yet done. You must first dry. But do not disrupt the dance of zeroes and ones who await the opportunity to musically whir a single piece of precious paper towel to aid you in your task. And last but not least, wave again for the electronic door butler to clear the way for you to return to society without worry about the scum before you who used none of the marvel of these germ obsessed microchips and actually touched, can you imagine that, touched the door handle with a bacteria laden hand to open it? Oh yuck does not do this misdeed justice!
There are children in the womb as we speak who will come into this world one day soon believing that all of this is normal, right, and sacred. They will believe that an outhouse without water, a toilet handle for flushing, a paper towel dispenser that requires human intervention, and a door that demands physical exertion are props made of movie lore that surely could have never existed. It has to make you wonder what they will wonder about , for my generation has already done all of the wondering that needs to be done. They will laugh as we laughed at Grandmother saying, "I used to walk five miles through the snow to get to school." (As I recall, it was uphill both ways!) Alas, the laugh that they will laugh will be on us.
Oh. One more thing. Did I tell you that I have a computer in the bathroom? But that is a bedtime story for another time.
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