The Night Driver

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

A lot.

What WOULD I un-invent? I’ll start with Doordash and Grubhub, and other delivery platforms.

When we were kids, it was a big deal to have food delivered. Even bigger, since we lived 22 miles out of town and couldn’t do it unless we were visiting friends in town. The pizza guy showed up 30 minutes or so later, handed us our stuff, we paid him, and had a good night.

I’ve went on about this before. Delivery apps encourage laziness. Not everyone who orders food to be delivered is lazy, to be fair. A good many are just stoned, too, and certainly I won’t judge someone for that. But it’s encouraged this ‘screw the humans’ mentality, that kills us all as a society.

Social anxiety is a big thing these days. I am by no means discounting this – if you sufffer from this, it’s quite real, I get it. But it seems like no one had this when I was a kid. People talked, interacted, and, well, let’s get real, smoked. Now, if I walk around downtown, everyone’s 3 feet deep into their hoodies, completely oblivious to their surroundings. I mean, to each their own, but at some point he’s gonna have to cross a street, and he might want to look around first.

And, I don’t exclude myself, either. There are some social situations that are truly beyond me, as well. But, I muddle through, without resorting to burying myself in a hoodie, or the phone. I can’t handle being in a room full of people that either don’t know me, or might know me from the distant past but I don’t remember them.

If you’re gonna order delivery, go local. Call a local pizza (or other) joint that delivers. Yup, that’s right. Pick up the phone, dial the digits, and talk to the person at the other end. You just saved a shit-ton of money, by not paying the Doordash/Grubhub charge, and the prices that get inflated on app orders to cover what the apps charge the restaurants. If there’s some problem, you can call the place, talk to a person that you can actually understand, and get your problem resolved.

Some other things that need to go away

Car-side delivery. So, you have enough energy to drive to wherever, but that last 20 feet is just too much? I can see if if someone’s disabled or something, but otherwise, get OUT of the car and come and GET your STUFF!

LED headlights. This has gotten WAY out of hand. First things first – if you get your truck lifted (and again, I don’t judge – it’s your truck) you need to get the headlights re-aimed. They are now higher up, and blind people. Low-beam headlights are supposed to shine more down then forward. When you lift the vehicle, they shine a lot further than they were designed to, and every approaching vehicle is blinded.

Subcategory: TURN your damn HIGHBEAMS OFF! If you’re in the city, you’re on lit streets. You don’t need your highbeams on, and were it not a legal requirement, most of the time in town you don’t need headlights period. “But I can’t see at night without them!” Then, you might need to get your eyes checked, or not drive at night.

“Winter Weather Advisory”: It’s January. What other kind of weather should I be expecting? There’s a snowstorm coming. OK, in January, this is something to expect at any time, unless you live in Florida or Hawaii or something. If there were a snowstorm in July, that would warrant this sort of warning. Or, a Summer Weather Advisory, for when we have these 70 degee days in January.