Occasionally, as I hurtle through the night, I see people sitting in their darkened cars parked along the side of the road. I often wonder why somebody would be sitting behind the wheel of a parked car at, say, 3 in the morning. These people, from the momentary glimpses I get, are usually just staring straight ahead, like they've forgotten something important and are trying very hard to remember what that something is. My theory is that they left work at the usual time - perhaps 5 pm - and got stuck in the commute for a couple of mind-numbing hours listening to corporate radio. The D.J. or talk-show host barely drowns out the receding echoes of the boss' voice - a voice that assaults their ears with unreasonable demands 40 or 50 hours a week. The voice that controls their lives. By the time these hapless commuters arrive home, the last echoes of the commanding voice have gone, leaving them with a void of confusion. This void may once have contained something like initiative or personality. Now it is just emptiness. They forget what to do next. There is no voice shouting at them to, "GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT CAR AND GO INSIDE AND EAT DINNER AND GO TO SLEEP SO YOU CAN GET BACK TO WORK BRIGHT AND EARLY THERE ARE PROJECTS THAT NEED YOUR ATTENTION DAMMIT WHY DIDN'T I HIRE SOMEBODY COMPETENT?" So they sit in their cars, like switched off appliances.

Of course, maybe they've just forgotten how to work the door handles. Handles can be complicated. This makes me wonder about the guy I saw once lying in the street with his pants around his ankles. Maybe he had forgotten how to use his pants. We are becoming a forgetful society. I think it all started around the time we created written language. Since we have the ability to write things down, we no longer have to memorize things. Computers are just the next step in the atrophy of our brains. Since they store so much information, and do so many different things, we're off the hook. We can sit back and relax. I already know people who refer to their palm pilots as their "brains" Pretty soon we'll all be like the man in the street with the complicated pants. We'll forget how to dress ourselves. Look at people who spend a lot of time around computers. It's already begun.

Cds I listened to while thinking up snotty things to say about people: Cowboy Junkies live at the Mountain Winery, June 9, 2000, The Fixtures "Dangerous Music Defect", and Changelings "Astronomica"

now: Tears of Stone soundtrack, and crickets (fewer than last night)