The Robots Have Already Taken Over

Fighting It From Seat 23C

Hello Parenting is a Jokesters! Happy almost Mother’s Day! I don’t know what your plans are, but I can tell you this – I want to be alone in a deprivation tank for a few hours. Or a day?

This week’s episode on Parenting is a Joke was recorded LIVE at the Moontower Festival in Austin, Texas and features the hilarious Andy Haynes, and SNL writer and comic Rosebud Baker. They are new parents of a 6-month-old baby and you won’t want to miss this laugh-packed episode HERE.

I’m writing this from seat 23C on a 6:10am flight back to LGA wearing the same socks and underwear that I did yesterday at 6:10am. The woman squished beside me clearly has a cold. I’m on an hour of sleep. I’m smart, so I’ve put an Air Tag in my checked luggage, and lucky for me, I can see my luggage boldly sitting at the terminal, as my plane takes off. This was not my plan.

As you may or may not know from following me (if you don’t follow me, wanna? @ophirae) I’ve been on the first portion of what I am calling my Bad Mom / Average Dad comedy tour. In this segment, I went to Palo Alto, Portland, and Seattle. Let me tell you – it was GREAT! And thank you to the people who came to the shows from finding out about it through the pod (and through this Substack…Deb!!). It was incredible to meet you in person. It filled me up. Also hat-tip to the fashion designer I met in Portland who invited me, next time, to come to her studio and drop by the psychedelic testing facility nearby to try some toffee candy-laced psilocybin. She mentioned that it mixes well with Wellbutrin. I was fascinated with every angle of this woman’s life and wondered if I should give up my sick fascination with encountering reality without a filter, without that slight chemical rerouting in my brain. And if right now you’re reading this, thinking – run don’t walk to that testing facility Ophira! Feel free to tell me! That’s what comments were invented for.

backstage celery stick dinner

When I do these tours, they are pretty taxing for me: travel, land, shower, makeup, go through the set, perform, meet-and-greet, dinner wherever is still open, try to fall asleep, get up, and repeat. And then when I get home to what should be a moment to rest, regroup, revitalize… as a parent you’re thrown right back into a high-energy laundry pit, a logistical puzzle of activities and tasks, a dead plant, a fridge that needs to be restocked, relationships with your family that need to be replenished. Slow and calm re-entry just isn’t a thing! And when you arrive home in a state of deficit, it just snowballs and burnout takes over fast. So, once again to be smart! this trip, I added on a day to go see my sister in beautiful British Columbia and chill out. She and her husband are empty-nesters and both tenured professors, and let me tell you their life seems so relaxed. Or rather, they just seem to have a life. I feel so self-conscious of not having one when someone asks me what I’m reading or watching as I have to admit that I’m in survival mode, hardly have time to read, see, or consume anything other than reruns of Friends that I fall asleep to at subpar Marriotts around the country.

And let me tell you – that 36-hour British Columbia buffer was super relaxing. I fell asleep at 9 pm and woke up the next morning at 7 am, something I’ve only dreamed of doing for years! But we all know, much like solar energy, I can’t store it.

I started to travel home. The first flight was so late, my connection looked uncertain. When I landed in Toronto, I geared myself up for a mad dash through the airport and customs to get to my gate – the kind of delusional dash you can only have when you don’t travel with kids. But before could finish tying my shoes, I received an email that I had been rebooked, leaving the next morning at 6 am. Oh and I had a hotel room at the airport Holiday Day Inn Express and a food voucher for $15 which I believe *almost* buys you half a coffee. I, of course, was livid. I started the process of standing in lines and explaining my predicament to various agents who simply said that there was nothing they could do because “the system made the change”, “the system activated the change once the flight was late”, “the system” controls everything. These dystopian words fly out of people’s mouths continuously at every company. What is this terrible, dark system that has you all by the throat? Corporate Oppression? Broken Capitalism? Flawed AI? I’m mystified by whatever this inflexible airline software that controls every agent is like. Just once I’d like to see what their screen looks like.  Sometimes you see them typing furiously, shaking their heads, their human skills mocked by the company app. Perhaps customer-facing jobs should involve three years of software development, so you know how to hack the system.

4am Airport Coffee Anyone?

And I realize gone are days of being a human problem-solver, because “the system” won’t let you. It renders you useless. I was raised by an expert problem solver: my mother. My mother would tell me that she would ruminate on problems in her sleep and would always wake up with novel solutions. We’re not talking global warming or a two-state solution, but everyday mom stuff: how to fix a broken drawer, how to make an impossible day work, how to placate an angry relative. She always came up with something. Those skills do help you as a parent. I’m also that annoying person who sees problems everywhere, and thinks, “if only I worked here, I could make it better and things would flow.” And yes this is my mentality at coffee shops, grocery stores, pharmacies. I always think, let me behind that counter, I’ll figure this place out in 10 seconds, which is hilarious because I am behind enough “counters” in my own life, and it’s not quite a well-functioning thriving machine.

Technology has made us better at reporting problems, diagnosing issues, even predicting glitches, but answers… not so much. Solutions involve real art and ingenuity, and that’s where it all falls apart.

I’m not worried about the robots taking over, I worry that my son will grow up in a world of technology that is similar to now - kind of half-broken: glitchy apps and clunky devices. Crazy password requirements and two-factor authentication. Printers that never work screens freezing, and user experiences that are so bad that all we give up and say is “the system won’t let me.” That’s when the machines have won!

Clearly, I am slightly delirious on this flight - or I’m finally seeing things for what they really are? But as I type from 23C, now half sniffling thanks to the woman in 23D, I’ve changed my mind on my Mother’s Day. I don’t want to check out in a sensory deprivation chamber, I want to spend time with humans, messy humans, being my family. Even if all of our systems fail, it’s full of problems, doesn’t go as planned, and in the end, I just feel very, very tired, I just want to be home with my son, and hopefully my luggage. At least this way I can find out that they didn’t plan anything for me. Ha! Can’t wait.

Again don’t miss this week’s episode of Parenting is a Joke LIVE! with Andy Haynes and Rosebud Baker. And coming up - a fantastic conversation with actor and director Lauren Prepon!

and Happy happy Mother’s Day!!