Only five minutes until my daughter's fiance arrives.
This will be the first time that my wife and I get to
meet him. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday making
the marinade for the meat. Both my wife and I have been
taking turns at the barbecue. First searing it, and then
slow cooking it. My wife has also prepared a few other
fine dishes, and I prepared the salad.
Ah, here he is now, I can see him coming in the door on
the television. "I have been waiting to meet you", and
he responds, "I have been afraid to meet you". I nod
appreciatively. My wife comes in and says that the meat
is ready and that we can sit and eat.
As we sit down to eat, I ask my daughter's fiance, "So Joe,
do you have any interesting stories from work?" Asking how
he likes his job would be a bit too forward at this time,
but at the same time, we should discuss real issues.
Joe takes a bite to eat and says, "This meat tastes terrible."
My wife and I smile as we cherish the comment. I had looked
up how he likes his steaks done, and I had guessed that it
might be a cooked a bit more than he likes. Then Joe says,
"But I appreciate the effort that you have taken. I saw that
you spent all day yesterday on it, and also saw that
you even checked out how I like my steaks." I like Joe's
statements so I say, "You still look a bit too wild for my
daughter, but she is a bit immature at times too. Maybe you
will be a good catch for her. I noticed you already have
plenty of money."
So we were off to a good start with our conversation and
I started to watch TV while eating. There is a politician on TV, and
he is talking about needing to increase qualifications
testing for the information selectors. I select the
stats updating, and it shows that his truth level is pretty
high, but his fuzzy meaning indicator is also high.
The information selector requirements have been on the news
a lot lately because recently an information selector was
found to have been slanting the truth a bit much. His
own necklace camera first reported it.
I asked Joe what
he thought of the story and he responded, "I really don't
know how much to trust the police anymore." I couldn't
respond quickly to his statement because I was busy figuring
out what police meant. I think my age is causing me
to think too much of the old days when police were manual
laborers, and actually fought crime. Now that they only
provide censorship and information release, they are much
more powerful. I was careful to respond and said, "I think
I agree with you." But Joe spotted the delay and may have
thought that it was a bit too long. My level of fear of
a good beginning going wrong just escalated a bit.
I try to repair some damage, so I select the TV to show my
stock portfolio value, and it shows that I am doing fairly
well. I remember the old days when you had to enter passwords
to see everything. It sure is nice that the TV knows who you
are, and there is no need for that silly stuff. Joe says,
"I can understand that you are trying to share with me, but
you don't have to resort to such obviously stupid stunts."
I say, "Thanks Joe."
Joe saw straight through me, maybe he has done more research
on me than I thought. Maybe I should look into him some
more in the future.
I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. At least I can get
a small amount of time in freedom. The censorship police
have prevented bathroom images from necklace cameras from
getting out to most viewers. I remember that necklace
cameras only became popular when they were first advertised
for protection. Now it is law that you must wear them
constantly.
I remember a news story once of a group of people getting
together in bathrooms and in desolate areas to try to share
magician tricks and other tricks to beat the system. The information
statisticians reported the odd group behaviour, and then the
information spies infiltrated the group and made the
information available to the information selectors.
I get back to the table and Joe has finished dinner and
is playing a game on TV. It is some game where you start
by selecting a real person, and then choose how to run
their life through real world scenarios. Sports stars and
celebrities are popular as well as fire fighters and other
action occupations. I haven't played it but I hear that
it is popular with the kids.
I tell everybody that I will
go pick up some ice cream from the grocery store. My wife
also tells me to pick up some aspirin.
I get to the store and find the ice cream aisle. I pick some
up and put it in my cart. Then an odd thought strikes me.
I leave the cart and go to the aspirin section. I pick up
the aspirin and walk over and drop it into someone elses cart.
Then I walk aimlessly over to the bread aisle just to cover
my tracks, and finally go back to pick up my cart with
only the ice cream. So far success. I walk out the store
with my ice cream. It sure is nice that there aren't checkout
counters anymore. It is also nice that cars don't have
locks anymore. I guess there are a few nice things nowadays.
I drive home happy. I get home and my wife asks, "did you
pick up the aspirin?" I say yes, and then she asks, "Where
is it?" I respond that I don't know. At this point I can
hardly contain my glee. Now I wonder, could I get away with
murder?
