Phillip was late for work. He was usually a little late, never more than ten minutes, though, and he knew his boss didn’t mind. It was rare that he was ever more than ten minutes late, but when it happened, he would call his boss to give him a heads up.
That morning, Phillip called his boss. He was in his car on the highway in traffic that was basically a parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I have no idea how much longer I’ll be stuck like this.”
“You’ve already missed your only appointment for the day,” his boss said with hints of annoyance in his voice. “No need to stress yourself, just head home and we’ll try again tomorrow, shall we? And maybe think about leaving earlier.”
Phillip didn’t argue, and eventually he took the next available exit so that he could return home.
Phillip was a hairdresser and barber and he really enjoyed his job. He liked making people look good and he had a reliable clientele of regular customers who came to him for the good work he was known for. He’d met all of his friends and forged all of his social attachments at his job, so when he wasn’t at work, he felt a little listless. He was a single man and lived alone in an apartment, and when he arrived there after getting the day off, he sat at the bar in his kitchen and tried to turn on the TV on the countertop. It was a complicated remote control, Phillip had bought it a month prior because it was truly universal; theoretically he could use it for his TVs, his laptop, his stereo system, but he struggled to program it to all of his devices. After pressing more buttons than were necessary, the TV did come on and he sat slumped in the stool at the bar, flipping through channels. It was rare that he watched broadcast television, he mostly streamed things on various applications from his tablet, but he didn’t feel like grabbing it from his bedroom.
There were a lot more broadcast channels than he remembered and most came in crystal clear with the digital antenna that tested on top. When he was young, there were only eight channels, and the majority were public broadcast stations. He remembered having to adjust the antenna for a while before picking up a good signal and sometimes he’d miss shows because he couldn’t get it in the right spot. Technology, even the most basic things, had advanced quickly in his lifetime.
He stopped on a shopping channel and was surprised that it was one of the channels he thought was only available with cable. He needed a new printer, and the one they were advertising was enticing, and at just four easy payments of twelve ninety-nine, it seemed like a bargain. But then he did the math and he was sure there were cheaper models on Amazon. He remembered the one that he’d almost bought for thirty dollars but couldn’t remember why he hadn’t bought it.
He flipped some more and found a rerun of one of his favorite sitcoms from his childhood, about a family of aliens who lived undercover on Earth and learned the customs of the planet. He hadn’t seen it in years, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing it on any of the streaming services that he used. He decided that he would track down all seven seasons on DVD because he still had a DVD player in his closet and there was nothing funnier that could remember. He mostly streamed dramas because the comedies he found didn’t make him laugh.
When that show went off, he continued flipping channels and stopped on the local public broadcast station. He waited through the acknowledgement of sponsors to see what the next show would be and he assumed that it would be a cooking show because a commercial played for fancy copper cookware that made Phillip really pay attention. He liked to cook and he worried about the safety of the cheap, nonstick pots and pans he usually bought (where did all that chipped non-stick surface end up after all?). Copper pans would be a good investment, he decided. Eventually a cooking show did come on and he watched a long run of shows for the two hour block that they played.
He decided to cook lunch and dinner, inspired by the things he watched. He whipped up a sandwich for lunch and made a chicken dish that he’d seen in one of the shows for dinner. He regretted that he never bought olives, he always noticed them at the store but he didn’t buy them because he was afraid that he wouldn’t eat them fast enough and waste his money. He resolved to buy olives the next time he was able.
His unexpected day off passed relatively quickly. He went out after lunch to take a walk around a nearby park and he marveled at the cyclists who looked like professionals on their bikes whizzing around the greenway. He took a picture of one of the bicycles so that he could check the price later. He thought that riding a bike would help him get in shape, but he avoided buying one for the same reason he avoided olives, he was afraid he wouldn’t use it enough to justify the money. Unless it was less expensive than he thought.
He had dinner in front of the big screen in his living room, then he put on music while he read a book on his tablet. He was in bed by ten and excited for work the next day.
He was an hour early and found his boss in his back office.
“It’s really no big deal,” he said jovially. “It was a slow day. I did book you some appointments for today so be sure to look over the schedule.”
Phillip had a busy day and it went by very fast. He felt accomplished as he drove home. He stopped to pick up his mail at the office building of the apartment complex, and he was shocked and horrified at all the packages waiting for him.
“Someone went on an Amazon binge,” the lady who worked the front desk said.
“What is all this,” Phillip said with disbelief, ” I didn’t order anything.”
“Well it’s all for you,” she said. “Maybe it’s a mix up.”
Phillip made multiple trips to take the packes to his apartment and when he opened them, he was furious. Almost a month before, when he’d bought his universal remote control, he enrolled in a new Amazon beta service. Apparently the company could use electronics like computers, TVs and cell phones to decipher brainwaves. Phillip had agreed to let Amazon collect and analyze his brain waves so that he could order products with a thought. This mode of shopping is not automatic and requires that the user activate it using their phone, computer, or the new universal remote that Phillip had purchased. He had unknowingly activated the brainwave shopping mode.
He was stunned as he unwrapped a computer printer, seven seasons of a TV show on DVD, an eleven-piece copper cookware set, olives, and a professional bicycle.
PRL Serials 