I took this picture at the ranger station when I was hunting in Zimbabwe one year. You can see the grounds man sweeping the compound in the dusty dry winter with a fallen tree branch, and all the “yards” per se of the surrounding huts where the people lived were meticulously swept in the same manner, the lack of greenery in the African winter being no reason to not have a tidy garden, and I thought about this one day as I walked in my neighborhood and I watched a woman who was essentially standing still as she held a gas-powered leaf blower that was clearly not up to the task of cleaning up the acorns in the street from her live oak tree, and I wondered about all the work that went in to designing, building, marketing, and delivering that machine and the refining of the fuels and the oils and the pollutants going into the air when in truth she could have probably cleaned up those same acorns in about 10 minutes with a good old fashioned broom.

As I kept walking I could hear the whine of the blower fading, but not because she was finished, it was only because the sound was diminished by the distance.

It strikes me that we have numerous innovations like electronic soap and paper towel dispensers and leaf blowers and any number of other first world “technologies” that bear social costs that while mostly remaining unseen, may in fact produce a net zero result if not in fact a negative return for society and indeed for the entire world. Why can’t we just pull on the paper towels anyway?

Currently there is a car commercial that makes the pitch for their newest innovation, which is a combination of some simple technology and what someone though was a great idea so that the horn beeps when the tires are properly inflated, so that when a person adds air to the tire, they immediately know when to stop (because the horn beeps), without having to be able to read a tire gauge or the letters and numbers on the sidewall, and someone somewhere is making money over this as we humans continue to evolve like silkworms, unable to survive without the external application of care for ourselves and the assistance of technology against even the most inane of daily activities.

Now I am not a technophobe, nor would I discount the needs of someone who might be vision impaired, (even I have at this point given in to the over the counter reading glasses), but then if this was the case, then that person might not need to be driving in the first place. The innovators, for lack of a better name, who feel that this great horn-beeping idea has somehow become a selling point in order to move more cars, must also assume that no family member, boyfriend, neighbor, or even the friendly staff at Discount Tire would be willing to assist someone who needed help in properly filling a tire, proper inflation being accepted as an important part of proper car maintenance. They must also assume that people out their generally want to fill their tires but just don’t know how, and that they are either overfilling, under inflating, ignoring the problem, or losing sleep over all of it not knowing what to do, all of which I find a little bit ridiculous.

Our car doesn’t have this technology, but we do have some sensor system that tell you if a tire is not properly inflated. Unfortunately it doesn’t tell you which one, nor does it tell you what to do when you check all the tires, or you have the guy at the tire shop check the all tires, including the spare, and even if they are properly inflated by the numbers the light remains on for some mysterious reason. In that case the only solution is an expensive visit to the dealer, which can result in the miraculous diagnosis that it is in fact the sensor system that has failed, and that is why the light on the dash remains illuminated. The beacon signaling failure, or danger, or some other warning for some reason cannot actually tell you what is wrong, or (here’s an idea), which tire is reading a fault, but remains illuminated unless you pay someone, so that you have a little orange-yellow demon in your dash staring at you, and you are constantly reminded that at worst you put the idiot in the expression idiot light, or at best you are cheapskate.

I know how to check and fill my tires. What I don’t know is how to turn that stupid fucking light off. Nor do I have any inclination to pay to repair the sensor system. So this little blurb is for the engineers and other good people at Volkswagen who built our Passat, and all the other bozos out there searching for the next great technological innovation to bring to market, and I hope that you will take it to heart when I say that I generally appreciate your efforts, but bring me something that makes a real difference in the world. Bring me something that consumes less and actually produces more. If I am too stupid to fill my tires then too bad for me, but don’t drive me to slow insanity by blinking lights and beeping horns. Don’t nickel and dime me to death by forcing me to pay you extra to tell me what your sensor system won’t. And please don’t contribute to the rampant consumption habits of the first world that make people automatically reach for the leaf blower as opposed to a broom.

Somewhere out there is a guy sweeping the leaves his yard with a fallen tree branch, and I’ll bet it looks beautiful.