Today I left work early to stop by the DMV, which apparently closes at 4:30 (why??). After a delay at the post office, I arrived at 4:20 and was told I would need $1 cash to turn in our two plates (they would take the plate our hit and run friend left in our trunk free of charge). CASH (why??)? I went though my wallet and entire car and found $0.68. 4:25. I ran to Family Dollar to try the ATM, only to find out my PIN STILL doesn't work (Ethan loves our credit union, but at this point I really miss my efficient relationship with big, corporate, banking America). 4:28. I spotted a grandmother playing with two kids in a waiting car. I realized my pride was not worth the frustration of having to rearrange my schedule tomorrow and come back to this place of perpetual frowns (is anyone who works at the DMV ever happy?), so I went up to the family and asked for $0.50. The grandmother laughed and happily fished it out for me. I told her she was my hero, and asked God to bless her. 4:29. Traded in the plates. Held open the door for the guy behind me, who walked through and then turned around confused. "You did not seriously hold the door for me, did you? (Implied: A girl holding a door for a guy?) That's just not right." Huh? All that to say: I learned how to get off my self -sufficient platform to ask someone for money for the first time ever today. It was a beautiful thing. And oh yeah... chivalry is alive, albeit distracted, in the land of perpetual frowns.
Thirty years ago, the technology that just turned my digital world upside down was unimaginable. I was locked out of my Google account because I foolishly left a Google voice number as a two-factor authentication. So when I was logged out of all devices unexpectedly, I couldn’t receive text messages to prove my identity. The thought of trying to describe this situation to someone in the 90’s is comical. What is Google? Two-factor authentication? A digital world? Similarly, I can’t imagine explaining that despite having a ticket, I couldn’t board a plane that had a seat for me because a computer wouldn’t print my youngest child's boarding pass. In pursuing security and efficiency, have we lost common sense? Technology has changed the world so quickly that I am old enough to remember a time when manual workarounds were commonplace and young enough to expect a lot more change will come in my lifetime. I spent much of yesterday trying every possible means of recovering ten years of e
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