From time to time, I inadvertently hit some button on my phone and a screen pops up that says, “What can I help you with?” If I don’t respond immediately, it says, “Go ahead … I’m listening.”
Despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that I have no idea how I make this happen, I find this feature endearing. Sure, the only things the phone offers to do are to call someone from my contact list or open one of my files and I can do that by myself, but I think it’s nice of her … him … it … to offer.
It would be better, of course, if I could say, “June Bug (I think I’d call her that), what should I make for supper?” or “Are municipal bonds really a good idea right now?” and June Bug would give me her wise, considered opinion, but so far, that’s not happening.
A lot of people have a June Bug-type gizmo that sits on their kitchen counter that is always ready with, if not a considered opinion, at least some handy information that might help a body make a decision on their own. Now, you’d think that people would use this access to piece together the meaning of life or something like that, but more often than not, it goes like this: “June Bug, who was the actor who played Mr. Haney on ‘Green Acres’?” After a momentary pause, June Bug says, “Pat Buttram,” and everyone says, “Oh, that’s right” and moves on with their lives.
Now, I know that June Bug is a machine connected to the wide, wide network of all the information in the world (or at least the version that has been logged), but it makes sense that, in order for her to retrieve just the right tidbit, the facts have to be organized in some way. I picture a vast warehouse filled floor to ceiling with various kinds of knowledge. When you ask a question, a little scooter-type robot moves rapidly through the aisles until she finds the answer and rushes back to June Bug, who grabs the mic and takes all the credit. My guess is that the June Bug Retrieval System keeps some more common answers close at hand, like “What’s the weather going to be today?” and others like, “What is the atomic weight of boron?” filed farther back in the “Who cares?” section.
I don’t have a housebound June Bug, mostly because I would find it unsettling to have someone passively listening to me all day long. I rattle off a lot of nonsense in the course of the day. June Bug might take it upon herself to dispatch the Looney Tune police and have me hauled away. A friend of mine found it so unnerving that she snuck up on June Bug and threw her in a drawer.
What I really could use is a JBRS robot to run around inside my brain and retrieve the things I already know but cannot seem to call to mind. I had to know the atomic weight of boron for a chemistry test at some point, but the information has since been stuck on a high cerebral shelf somewhere. Maybe it has fallen to the floor and been kicked under a desk. All I know is that at one point I had it and now I do not.
Funny thing is, I had no problem recalling the name of the actor who played Mr. Haney. Maybe my brain just needs a better filing system. “Hey, June Bug, how do I do that?”
