Pervasive Digital World

My struggle against the twenty-first century continues. Those who follow my blog are aware of all the screwball on-line banking crap I've been dealing with lately. Monday the digital struggles continued. This time is was the pharmacy.

I went in to get a simple prescription filled. For some reason the record of my medication had completely disappeared from their files. There were plenty of other people suffering from digital mayhem. The line was huge, even though the pharmacy had tripled the counter staff. They even had people paying for their meds at the candy counter at the other end of the store. A good part of the afternoon was wasted hanging around.

After leaving there my mood was a tad grumpy. The car was low on gas so I went to fill it up. My gas card did not function. It turns out that nobody's functioned all day. Fortunately I had other methods of payment, including a good bit of cash.

I wonder if there was some sort of solar flare or something that screwed up the satellites? Hackers? Gremlins?

It did get me thinking about how much computers have slowly taken over my existence. I'm old enough to remember doing business with just cash and the occasional check. It's almost impossible to do that now. Our pension “checks” are electronic deposits. Some businesses that we deal with are only set up for electronic payments. When these systems go down, it's a royal mess. The digital world certainly has its downsides.

On the other hand, I'm well aware that I'm sharing my story by writing it on a computer and posting it to the Internet.

-Sixbears