And another thing, who ever decided that we wanted to watch TV while pumping gas?
When I first saw the movie Blade Runner, I was struck by the bleak cityscape of 2019 Los Angeles, smoggy, dark, and — most especially — dominated by TV screens, most of them apparently selling something. Flying billboards, sides of buildings and vehicles serving as advertisements, storefronts full of television screens.
It was nowhere I would want to live — overcrowded, ugly, and with your every thought interrupted by TV screens of all shapes and sizes. No, thank you. Brilliant movie, though. Wow.
Fast forward to the spring of 2020, in real life. I walked into Costco wearing the stupid mask because the store wouldn’t admit anyone inside without one, and pushed my shopping cart toward the food section. Literally every 10 feet they had set up 55-inch TV screens with Dr. Anthony Fauci selling customers on the idea of staying at least 6 feet from each other, wearing masks, and well, you remember the drill.
We weren’t overcrowded, but it was ugly, with our every thought interrupted by TV screens of all shapes and sizes. “Life imitates Blade Runner,” I remember thinking.
And now here’s a little TV screen in the gas pump, shouting news and trivia at us while we fill up. Why? Why? Why? Life imitates Blade Runner. No, thank you.
And another thing, you kids get off my lawn.