February 22, 2024. 50 degrees, sunny sky, calm.

 

Full charge, pumped tires, endless trails, and a distant grocery store across the pond. A day of adventure for the old man and his trike.

How we doing? Our AI wants to know

 Just scroll down if you’d rather not hear a grumpy old man bitch about artificial intelligence.

Here goes: 

Despite their advertising to the contrary, my bank has consolidated itself into a mega corp that can no longer relate to its customers, try try try as it might. Their hapless employees are victims as well, trying to keep abreast of the changes and mergers that render them agog, and helpless to make any meaningful decisions. They may do their best, but often that is just shaking their heads helplessly and holding your hand.

My trouble today is not a big deal, but we’re changing banks and would like our social security checks now to be deposited automatically to our new bank. Simple, right?

Our kind SS worker, at the end of a long wait needed to know the old routing number in order to make our transition to the new bank. Reasonable request when everyone is anonymous. Trouble was, our old bank had acquired another old bank but hadn’t updated the routing number when they acquired it, but apparently were happy to continue to acquire our deposit anyway.  Social security merrily continued using that dead bank’s number for about a decade. The SS worker had suggested we look at some of our old checks to match the number THEY were using each month. Security requirement, you know. We had tossed those old paper checks, of course. I mean, after 10 years?

So no one knew the dead routing number at our new old bank. It required research through headquarters someplace. We called our new old bank and got a teller and asked about that merged bank. No idea. Neither did the new old bank president, Don.

As funny as it was unbelievable. Don had no idea, promised to research the corporate mergers at the head shed after he got back from vacation. He did. Problem solved.

Then comes the satisfaction survey from corporate, a device it uses to wield control over its minions who have impressive titles but no power. It reduces them to four out of five stars, or so, some management scheme to manage by asking questions that have no relevance, forcing you to choose yes and no and 1 to 10. No questions from corporate about: Do you like our artificial intelligence? Are we too big? Have we lost touch with our clientele?

I did my best to express my general frustration with the system, using their crude survey. It was inadequate.

I do like Don, the local nice guy they call “The president,” but I’m not fooled. We had a warm conversation and Don has the same frustrations as I do. He’s been there two months, one of a long chain of “presidents.” Apparently when the artificial intelligence figured I had checked the wrong boxes, it triggered a call from a faraway place asking Don what the hell was going on. 

I’d like to buy him a beer sometime, and we’ll cry in it.

The new curators

At noon today, responsibility for the renown Rolfsrud Relics was formally accepted by Bailey Breck Rolfsrud. Ninety-five pounds of material, mostly scrapbooks, were officially turned over to the new curator, for placement in the Rolfsrud Repository in Mankato, Minnesota. Her powerful yet compliant escort removed the material in one swift motion, after a cursory inspection of the heavily redacted materials, some in the collection for over 100 years. Ms. Rolfsrud's weight of responsibility rivaled the weight of her husband's package. Bailey Breck, an author of some renown herself, will catalogue the ancient pages and be available for queries from interested parties, as soon as an 800 number is established.

Naked and afraid

 Despite the inconvenience of five kids, Mom and Dad went on the road for periodic concert tours in the early 50s. They farmed their children to various locations for a few weeks for the duration of their “Sacred Concert” road show, passing the hat at various and sundry Midwest churches. 

I drew Ruby and Al Korkowski, a childless couple on a tiny farmstead between Brandon and Garfield, Minnesota. She was a schoolteacher, wise and experienced. He had “heart-trouble”, but always showed me a big heart, teaching me, at a very young age of 4, how to maneuver his red Farmall Cub tractor in low gear, while he tossed bales of hay onto a trailer.

 
I loved them.

Al was salt of the earth, and wise, but he could never quite explain to this curious child exactly why he kept a huge, nasty bull on the premises.
“Be careful around the bull, he can be dangerous,” he would warn.
“If he doesn’t give milk and he’s so mean, why do you keep him?’ 

Al always had a red-face and was non-plussed by this query anyway.
“We’re going to butcher him,” he’d say. “he’s got to get a little bigger though, ” he said sincerely.

I was satisfied with this, not knowing it was easier to mention death to a tot, rather than the miracle of birth, or that the bull was just there to help the mother cows have calves. No matter, it was a different time.

Returning to the farmhouse one day, Ruby was in the kitchen, having coffee with a neighbor. She insisted that I go into the basement and shower off the farm dirt and dust. I balked. I hated taking showers and she knew it.

“You have to take a shower, Stanley” she admonished. “If you don’t, I am going to have to take a shower with you,” she twinkled as her friend sat silently, in on the tease.

Horrified by the prospect of getting naked with a mature woman of my mother’s age, I did not call her bluff.

I headed downstairs immediately and obediently and got scrubbed up.