Have you ever had one of those days where you feel as if every piece of technology you pick up is out to sabotage you? There’s a reason for that.

Our gadgets communicate with each right under our noses, and we’re not even aware of it. They act up as self-protection, just to make sure we don’t get too cocky or become too efficient.  

I’m convinced that, like in Peter Pan, whenever someone says, “I don’t believe in fairies” and a fairy falls down dead, whenever someone says, “I’m going off the grid,” electronics everywhere  malfunction in chain reaction just to remind us we really can’t do that, even if we might like to.

Don’t believe me? Do you really believe Siri and Google Home are there only to do your bidding. I’m sorry, but any device that can find the directions to wherever I want to go, when I can’t, is highly suspect.

How else could you explain the Zoom meeting that suddenly decides to drop audio or prevent someone from joining? Or your cell phone that suddenly cuts off the call in the middle of an important interview? Or your website that crashes for no apparent reason? And how about the navigation device that keeps sending you in circles?

If this happened over a month, or even a few weeks, you wouldn’t think much of it. But when these things coincide over the course of one day, I have to chalk it up to a conspiracy going on within the artificial intelligence community.

And I know darn well there’s some listening device on telephone lines.  How else do you explain talking to your doctor about a handy little kit that will take the place of having a colonoscopy for the first and only time, then having an ad for said kit appear when you go online 2.5 minutes later?

We think we’re in control, but we’re really just Mickey Mouse in a Sorcerer’s pointy hat, conducting a symphony of mischief that we started when we invented the first electric light bulb.

Do I sound like a conspiracy theorist? I have a theory on that too: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

P.S. Just kidding…Sort of.

P.P.S. My computer just added that line, all on its own.

Originally published in the April 22, 2021 issue of Beyond the Nest’s Free Weekly Newsletter of Arts, Culture and Recreation for Rochester, NY