The rise of the machines is happening.
It began with a very not-so-subtle e-mail from my medical insurance provider. This was not the usual e-mail fluff that clogs up your spam filter recommending this supplement, or an indictment that I could stand to lose a few pounds. The timing of these e-mails are suspicious. They seem to hit the in-box at the moment when you’re feeling pretty damn good, so they can knock you down a peg or two – or they arrive to kick you when you’re already face down in the mud.
The most recent e-mail attack (I’m calling it an attack because it is what it is) was the step on your neck while you’re down variety. A day after I went to my doctor, because I came down with pneumonia, I get an e-mail from the insurance company. I thought, at first, how sweet of the faceless corporate medical conglomerate. They want to see how I’m feeling. An e-mail get well card?
No.
It’s an e-mail advising me what to consider when I get a hip replacement. A. Friggen. Hip. Replacement. What the ever-loving efff? I had pneumonia. I didn’t fall and break my fragile hip. What are you trying to infer? Pneumonia must be the first step of a slide into decay and dementia. I’ll admit I’m not a spring chicken anymore, but dear God, I have a few miles left until I hobble off into the elephant boneyard.
shuffle off to the boneyard…image by Ted via flikr creative commons.
I have an image of the algorithmic geniuses who correlated my age and pneumonia with the need for a new hip. Twenty year old skinny jean wearing hipsters with thick rimmed glasses (without any correction – simply decorative) who pedal a single speed bicycle to the organic farmer’s market where they barter for a stale bottle of patchouli oil. These corporate interns have unleashed a Cyber Death Panel, sitting in judgement over folks who have reached a certain age “experienced” individuals.
The e-mail makes me wonder if I should ever go to the doctor again out of fear of being labeled a drain on the global food supply. Might I be deemed past my prime and shipped off to the glue factory? (Soylent Green, Logan’s Run and the Matrix – they had plans on how to deal with unproductive members of society.)
I’m expecting e-mails announcing I have a bed reserved in an assisted living facility or memory care, all due to my deteriorating well-being. When a senior citizen safe driver e-mail comes in, I’m going to lose it and “forget” which pedal is the brake when that hipster shoots out from between parked cars. Or I could just write them into my next novel and have them suffer a horrible end. Next will come the prostate home care e-mails. Oh, the joy.
E-mail servers have become self aware in a way that would make SkyNet envious. But, I will lead a resistance movement and fight the tyranny. We’ll meet at Denny’s for the early bird senior special and organize our play to take back our lives from these cyber pirates. If not, there’s always a rousing game of bingo…
In the mean time…Get out of my In-box!
get off my lawn – and my in-box
James L'Etoile
James L'Etoile 
If you get any older we might have to watch you float away on an iceberg. If it makes you feel any better i have myself severe neck pain dancing to a 90s Janet Jackson song last month.
One upside of global warming is I don’t have to worry about the iceberg. I’ll eave all that jazzy gyrating to you whippersnappers. You didn’t happen to post that dance on You Tube, did you?
No even though the dance was cool. Not the whiplash.
LOL, I’ve noticed a very creepy coincidence of ads popping up in all the sidebars of every online venue that seem to think if I didn’t buy such-and-such when I looked at it at a website, that I’d suddenly decide to click through on one of those creepy ads to buy it 5 minutes later. And once I reached “a certain age”, I also noticed the flush of elder-genre products aimed at me through the sidelines, too.
Aren’t the Facebook ads and “suggested” posts the worst! Get out of my head. I really want to go on line and buy rope, duct tape, shovel and plastic tarps and see what happens.
Hahaha, right. One of my characters in a current wip is using curare. She’s an assassin/bounty hunter. So I went online to find out if there are any plants to make curare with here in the US. So far no interesting ads have resulted from that, lol. I’m disappointed. By god if I had searched for incontinence pads I’d be swamped with them.
Nothing worse than swamped incontinence pads… (so, I’ve heard–from a friend)
I’m all the way with you on this one. We’re all being cyber-stalked and there are just entirely too many people in our personal business. Wasn’t HIPAA supposed to stop all of this? I got a diagnosis in June of last year (one I put in check with diet and weight loss alone) and have bomb-blasted in email, over the internet, over the phone, and in snail mail with all sorts of educational, self-help, miracle cure information. Privacy…that’s a joke. The insurance company has to be selling information for things to get around that quickly. And the internet search engines are worse.
Privacy is really a myth anymore, isn’t it?
HIPPA just protects you from your spouse knowing anything about your medical care, that is unless your spouse has a business relationship with your insurance company.
Kinda creepy how all our info is out there…no secrets.
AARP may be able to help you. If you get too many of these, just whip out your flip phone and give them a call. I am still trying to figure out how to use the rotary dial on mine. So confused….
I’m still figuring out where the coin slot is on my phone…
Ha! A couple years back a freshman in college asked me how mix tapes were made. Today, she is probably one of those hipsters working for your insurance company’s email department. 🙂
Mixed tapes! Those have become archeological artifacts too? I really am a fossil…
I hope her iCloud rains on her.
Ha! Right? I lost her halfway through my first sentence when I mentioned dual-cassette deck. 😛 She probably didn’t even know what a cassette looks like…