"Hold Your Damn Horses"

When did our society become so impatient? When did we become so concerned with right now that we lost the patience to wait out a storm or two along the way? I think it all started with microwave ovens.

You notice how quickly "oven" was dropped from that product, don't you? Now, it's just a microwave. We can't even slow down enough to tell you what cooking tool it duplicates.

It used to be, everything took forever. Then the microwave got here. Costing thousands of dollars, and taking up entire rooms of peoples houses. In the time it used to take to cook a single baked potato, we could now absolutely ruin three full-course meals with radiation. It was a big advance for people who liked their food cold and bloody, but still hard as a rock and burned to Hell in places as well.

We got better. Microwaves got smaller. They got cheaper. We figured out that you didn't have to cook things until they shriveled like Jacques Cousteau's fingertips. But we couldn't keep it there.

Now, everything is made for the microwave, and we've evolved. Now we stand in front of the microwave, tapping our feet and yelling "Come on!" wishing we had access to higher levels of radiation so that we can get our pizza rolls done faster.

At least those foods require heat. Remember at one point, how if there was nothing to eat, we'd just make a sandwich? Well, apparently that was too difficult for some people. From the looks of things, thousands of people every year must have been checking into emergency rooms for sandwich-related injuries.

"Everybody, clear...this man's accidentally spread himself with a butter knife...I'm gonna need 20cc of psuedoephidrine, stat...sir... if you can hear me, we're going to try and amputate the olive loaf that's affixed itself to your trachea. Dammit... when will these amateur hoagie-jockies learn?"

You laugh, but that's the underlying principle behind all these "Lunchables" and premade lunch packages you see at the stores. They're saying "Look, we know you're busy, and cold cuts may be beyond your capacity right now. We'll do the dirty work for you. We'll even give you a cookie."

Even worse are the ones for kids. Those little "Mommy's busy" lunches. They should put a surgeon general warning label on the side that says: Is there not one extra minute in your life you could give up to make something for your kids big meal of the day? At least you serve the dog out of a can.

At a certain point in your life, you've got to stop eating school cafeteria food. Remember what everybody who worked in your school's cafeteria looked like? That's because they had to eat there every day.

You've got to stop doing things the easy way. Just because society accepts something doesn't mean you have to. We're obsessed with speed, and finishing some things so quickly, we don't even remember accomplishing them.

Look at our growing fascination with the internet. The first time you ever looked on the internet, you said "this is great." The world was at your fingertips. The second time you looked at the internet, you said "boy, this computer is a piece of crap. Can't this thing go any faster?" We want the capability of downloading millions of pieces of information with the click of a button for our use, so we can use this data to enrich our lives. Of course, we won't. You get online to "surf the net" and your ability to find anything worth looking at disappears like J D Sallinger finding he's accidentally checked into the MTV Beachhouse. You wind up just wandering around the world wide web, downloading crap you couldn't care less about at the speed of thought. It's a good thing there's porn out there, or this internet sham would have been sniffed out years ago.

You don't think we're an impatient society? Look at how we drive. Look at the way they market cars... "The new Ford Testosterini goes from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds..." Well, that's good news if you're buying this car to run blocker for Jerry Reed while he attempts to drive his eighteen wheeler full of beer back from Texarkana, but what's the point of having the fastest car at the stoplight?

That's another thing...stoplights. People get so upset at having to stop for red lights. They'll gas it, double the speed limit, drive up on the shoulder, swerve around, and slide through the intersection like they're leading the Cannonball. All so they don't get stopped at the red light. Cause, you know, that's thirty seconds of your life you'll never get back.

Why don't they just market fast cars to the target audience...

"The new Chrysler Studmonkey...no one will even notice that receding hairline."
"Test-drive a limited edition Dodge Stiffie...the junior college girls will love you."
"We know your wife doesn't understand you...you'll love the new Porsche EverYoung."

You know, let Joe Rogaine know that Madison Avenue cares about him.

How about CD players? Yeah, the quality seems to be better, but you can't convince me we didn't just invent the CD because we were tired of fast-forwarding and rewinding. Now, we can access any track at any time. From another room by remote control, if necessary. Now, we've even grown tired of walking over and putting our CDs in the player, and multiple CD players are becoming the rage. I saw one the other day with room for 200 CDs. The salesman said, "Imagine all the great music you could load in at one time." I said, "I'm imagining burning up two dozen double-a batteries trying to find the one song that's worth a damn on each of my 200 Cds."