 Do younger people get irritated by as many things as I do, or are they just less creative and discriminating? Please, don't answer that, but do join me in the garden of gripes...
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 Not to brag, but I can remember a time when apps meant appetizers and they were a good thing. Not anymore, though, and that’s a disaster for multiple reasons.
The obvious, of course, is the labyrinth of clutter created by 200 apps we’ve already downloaded, clogging our screens and draining our batteries as they sell our personal information to anyone with two tenths of a cent to spare. Pretty much every app on our phones is the property of some company that won’t allow us to give them our money unless we download their software, use our phone’s memory to store it, read the 20 texts they send us each day, and give them permission track our movements, record our conversations, read our messages, sell our data, and perform the lobotomy we agreed to in the terms of service. Even worse, though, is the gap between the apps we have and those we absolutely need. It can seem like there’s an app for everything, but there’s so much that has been overlooked. Until now. Almost free (See our Terms of Stealing, section MMMMCMVI, paragraph 274) for any app developer who’s just been replaced by AI, we offer the most essential apps (applications, not appetizers) for 2026-7. These are the critical bits of software that will:
The app pandemic is real, but every challenge creates new opportunities for the bold innovators who want to steal my best ideas and get filthy rich for their efforts. Just be sure to obey the Rights and Royalties section (MMMCMMMXXVII, paragraph 842) of our Terms of Stealing and nobody gets hurt. I’ll pay you to kill my family.
Well, I won’t be paying you, specifically, but I will be paying the restaurant where I signed up for an event and included my family on the attendance list. That’s because I signed off on their waiver before I read the damned thing and…fun fact…I agreed to defend them and pay any damages if they get sued, or maybe even arrested, after the massacre. They didn’t say killing us was a sure thing, of course, but they did say they might do it either intentionally or by accident, and they insisted that I must underwrite these torts and crimes if I want to visit their fine establishment. According to the waiver, I don’t even need to be there when they stage the red wedding. And it has to be a lot like the red wedding, since I don’t want any friends or relatives left to sue them on my dime. Seems totally fair. Who could argue with that? We all sign a million waivers in a year and we all assume they are meaningless, but that isn’t necessarily true. And we know it isn’t true because nobody who assures me that these things cannot be enforced will offer to indemnify me in the ever-so-unlikely event they are wrong. These things aren’t new, of course. In the early days of personal computers, at least some of the software licenses specified that the software was not whatever it was advertised to be, was not warranted to do the job it was advertised to do, and might not be of any use at all. Reading the fine print was a lot like staring at Rene Magritte’s not-an-apple. Still, nobody at Visicalc told me their spreadsheets might cause death and I had to be okay with it. That lack of foresight helps explain why they’re out of business now. Since then, the teams that deliver premature excuses have taken the lesson to heart. Now, disclaimers and waivers are epics of creative writing; not as pithy as The Inferno, but equally ominous. I’m told the legal eagles in charge of avoiding responsibility come up with these overreaching documents so they can convince us we have no recourse and it’s useless to even talk to a lawyer after they kill our families. I’m told Illinois is among many states that toss these omnibus hall passes in the trash when it’s time for a trial. Still, I did promise not to complain when judgment day arrives and a promise is a promise. Just to be safe, I should probably make sure I never set foot in their restaurant again and encourage my family to stay away, as well. I absolutely cannot afford to spend money there while I’m working to build my indemnity fund…just in case.  You always think you’ll have more time…and then you don’t.
I saw him on Tuesday. They gave him the diagnosis on Friday. A week later, he was gone. Our last phone call was too short, too laden with news and shock and grief. We were due for another conversation, in person, to share memories and dissolve the bleakness for just a few minutes. I was going to tell him about the stories I’ll share, the lessons I learned, the gift of six decades of friendship. I was going to assure him of his life’s value, his contributions, his legacy. I was going to…woulda, coulda, shoulda. Another conversation never came. You think you’ll have a way to organize it, to prepare, to make it truly meaningful in your last moments together. Instead, it suddenly turns out that your last dinner was your last dinner. Your last phone call was your last phone call. Your last visit was your last visit. Now, and from now on, there is silence. I should know better by now. I’ve been through it too many times with too many friends. My cousin, Carl, calls it the conveyor belt. We all move forward, along with our friends and family, but we’re all on different belts and none of us can see whose will end first. We almost never know which of us it will be, but our own odds increase with each moment. All the conveyor belts end with a plunge and there is no going back, no way to pick anyone up and put them back on for a slightly longer journey. Alan, Jeff, David, Tom, and, now, John; every one of the fallen was more than “merely” a four-decade friend. They were all witnesses to my own life, the people who could attest to the accuracy of my recollections or, all too often, correct my failing memory. In a way, they made my own existence more real, less ephemeral. As those connections disappear, part of me disappears with them. Grief is, perversely, one precious reward for a long life. The longer you live, the more friendships you cultivate, the more you’ll experience grief. Grief is the validation, the measure of what we’ve lost. The more it hurts, the more we had to lose. If it doesn’t hurt, we didn’t have it. They say we’re supposed to think of each interaction with friends and family as if it might be our last. We’re supposed to tell people how much we appreciate them while they are around to hear it. We’re supposed to avoid words we cannot take back if the door should close suddenly. Life doesn’t work that way, of course. We’re human and we say things we will regret, forget to say something we intended to mention, and assume we have more time, even though we don’t. Meanwhile, we make more of the “last time” than we probably should. We build a relationship over years, with all the ups and downs that come with our seasons. If we’re good friends, if we’re good people, we build up a balance of good will that can’t be depleted by the wrong word or a bad day. It’s extremely rare that any last words can be painful enough to negate a lifetime of camaraderie. All of this might sound maudlin, and it is, sorta, but it’s also a gift. If you’re lucky, your ride on the conveyor belt continues. To live is to have the opportunity to try anew, to discover, to experience one last dinner, one last visit, one last call of your own. To live is to have the opportunity to share stories and lessons from your friends and, in a very small way, keep them alive. Cherish the memories. Tell the stories. Exhale, Inhale. Move forward. Try anew.  I was playing a trivia game when I learned that there wasn’t a single working telephone in the United States during Alexander Graham Bell’s funeral. As a sign of respect to Bell’s memory, they suspended phone service across the country for one full minute…60 glorious seconds.
They did the same thing in Canada, which used to be an ally before we started loading 800% tariffs on every single thing they send us and they retaliated by dumping a gazillion tons of forest-fire smoke across the border. Bell’s honor was nothing compared to Will Rogers, whose death resulted in America’s radio networks suspending all broadcasts for half an hour in 1935. People had lives then, so it wasn’t as big a deal, but imagine that much serenity today. Clearly, they were a lot smarter back then than we are now. Moments of silence, especially moments that last an hour or more, would do us a lot of good. We’d all be so much better off if major events led us to shut down social media traffic or if cable news shows went dark, even if only for a few minutes. We can have minutes/hours of silence to mark a major death, of course, but why not expand the concept to honor achievements of the living? We could, for example, observe an hour of silence every time:
Really, the list of possibilities is endless. It’s almost the same as a drinking game, but with less liver damage. The more I think about it, the more I’m liking this idea. If we work at it, we could end up with enough “moments” of silence that we can enjoy hours of peace every single day. We could reject every unwanted comment or pointless meme with a single message: “I’m sorry I cannot respond during this moment of silence.” It’s so much more polite than STFU, and probably just as effective. Shhhhhhhh.  People who work in retail have way too much time on their hands, or else they’re just drinking too much Red Bull on their breaks. How else do you explain it when you order a tube of toothpaste and you get a message like:
TIME TO GET EXCITED. YOUR ORDER IS IN THE WORKS! Yes, I know there isn’t an actual human being typing those words. Still, somebody typed those words into the automated script, so all of us are now the victims of some strangely irrational exuberance. The gushing confirmation of your order is just the start, of course, because you had to give them your phone number in order to complete the purchase and now you’ll get at least 27 texts to keep the party going. Ping. Omigod we just packed your box. Ping. Can you believe it? We just left your package for the delivery service. Ping. We’re orgasmic over here, just thinking about you opening our box. Ping. The mailman picked it up and there’s no stopping us now. Ping. Oh, baby, oh, baby, our little package of love has arrived on your doorstep. We cannot wait for you to enjoy it fully. Ping. WTF! We went to all the trouble to meet all your needs and you haven’t opened the package yet? Ping. Playing hard to get, are we? Well, two can play at that game. Ping. Who are we kidding? We are so hooked on you that nothing can stop our excitement, just thinking of you, ever so slowly, unwrapping our little package. Ping. We tapped into your Nest camera and we see you’ve picked up the package and taken it inside. We’ll sync with Alexa now to hear what you think of it. Ping. Please take this 497-question survey to let us know how much you love our (toothpaste). Please note that any scores below five stars will lead to mass firings and ritual suicide. Ping. Isn’t this the best (toothpaste) you’ve ever had? Don’t you want to order more? Ping. Don’t worry about ordering more (toothpaste). We’ve added it to your cart and checked you out. For your convenience, we charged your card on file. Ping. TIME TO GET EXCITED. YOUR ORDER IS IN THE WORKS! Like Estelle Reiner said, I’ll have what she’s having. |
Who writes this stuff?Dadwrites oozes from the warped mind of Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning author who spends most of his time these days as a start-up business mentor, book coach, photographer and, mostly, a grandfather. All views are his alone, largely due to the fact that he can’t find anyone who agrees with him. Archives
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