Orwell Was Wrong

Mack Hall

Orwell got it wrong, of course. In 1984 the omnipresent telescreen is forced upon a subservient population by an omnipotent socialist government. The reality in the USA is that we, the people, demand telescreens from omnigoofy capitalist providers at omniexpense to ourselves.

My own telescreen began wonking out last month, and so I packed a small bag, said goodbye to the family, and sat down to spend much of the summer on the telephone talking to The Stepford Robots. Apparently the robots were tuned in to the DaVinci Templar Crystal Pyramid Club of Constantinople Matrix Continuum on Channel D via U.N.C.L.E. headquarters; they certainly weren’t listening to me.

The Stepford Humans who finally replaced the robots were as scripted and inattentive as the robots. The drill with technology appears to be that when your satellite service fails, it is your job to fix it. The Stepford Humans expect you to work through a diagnostic scheme that would challenge Bill Gates’ dog, a diagnostic scheme which includes climbing a ladder and looking at the satellite dish itself.

I’m paying how much a month for this?

Have you ever stood atop a ladder and meditated upon a satellite dish? Unless you are still living in a Neverland Where It Is Always 1968, practicing Incidental Pedicuration and chanting lines from Alan Watts on your sitar, I can’t recommend it. The device which brings Groomzillas, Flip This Double-Mortgaged House, and other classics of Western Civilization into your living room is in itself pretty dull. A satellite dish looks as if it grew up wanting to be a radar on a James Bond villain’s jet-powered gunboat with bikini babes and missiles, but somehow lost focus, dropped out of high school, hung out smoking magnetic tape with cast-off reel-to-reel tape recorders, and found its way to your roof, pondering a withered leaf, a dead lizard, and the mysteries of the universe in its existential concavity. And, like, y’know, stuff.

After a few occasions of robot crosstalk with both robots and humans, I finally had to say “Ma’am, stop.”

This barely broke the pattern of the Stepford Human reading her script.

“No, really, stop. I’ve done that. No, listen to me. Listen to me. I’ve done that. I’ve done that several times. I’m tired of getting out the ladder and climbing to the roof. I’m tired of checking cable this and cable that. I need a human being to come out here and check the system.”

“Have you checked the second receiver?” asked The Stepford Human.

“Ma’am, I don’t have a second receiver.”

“Our records show that you have two receivers.”

“Ma’am, technically, I do. I bought a new receiver to replace the old receiver when I thought the problem was in the old receiver. I made a ‘phone call and cleared that. The old receiver is in a box on a shelf and not hooked up to anything.”

“Yes, but you were supposed to make another call to deactivate the old receiver. Our records show that you have two receivers.”

“Ma’am, the old receiver was deactivated; that’s why I replaced it.”

“Yes, but you were suppose to make another call to deactivate the old receiver. Otherwise we will continue billing you for two receivers.”

“You’re billing me for two receivers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, stop it.”

”That’s not my department. You’ll have to call another department.”

“Well, will you send a real human to come out here and look at all this? I’m not an electronics technician, and I’m too old and fat to be climbing up to the roof.”

The Stepford Human sighed, pondered all this, and grudgingly admitted that a technician, he’s very busy, you know, could come out in eleven days.

So let it be written; so let it be done. The technician arrived on the appointed date, his tattoos and piercings bridging the aesthetic gap between a storm trooper and PeeWee Herman. But he knew what he was doing. The problems were in some sort of pod (probably full of carnivorous Martians just waiting for the signal from evil President Bush to hatch and take over the planet) that the dish holds in a little arm, was as dysfunctional as a Hillary operative. This was a matter that a householder could not observe, diagnose, or repair, so take that, Stepford Robots and Stepford Humans who insisted I keep running diagnostics.

The fellow with the metal blobs sticking out of his face and the Iron Cross (he didn’t look old enough to have been in World War II, but who’s to say, eh?) on his body handed me his ‘phone; his supervisor wanted to talk to me.

“Allo? Ees thees Lorenz Haullllllll?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“Meeeeester Haulllllllllll, do you own you ownnnnnn houuussse?”

“Why? You want to buy it?”

“Eeeef yewwwww own you own house we haf a special offer…”

“Not interested.” I handed the ‘phone back to the technician, who was embarrassed by having to go through all this. And it must be pretty hard to embarrass a guy whose face is studded with metal parts (maybe a satellite dish exploded?) and who wears Iron Cross tattoos.

I pay for this, Gentle Reader. I pay for this.

Orwell, thou should be alive at this hour.