Ten Little Indians, a play by Agatha Christie, takes place on Indian Island where ten dandies are gathered for a weekend soiree. Things go along smashingly until one of the guests turns up murdered, and then a second one, and then another. Panic was everywhere as those still standing tried to solve the mysterious murders. And then another and another. And then there were none. I was reminded recently of that play, in which I played a minor dandy in a college production.
I drove Bev to the nail shop the other day. I didn't know what they did in there but always returned home satisfied. I waited in the car. Just the thought of, much less watching someone play with your toes and do lethal harm with scissors and other surgical instruments is more than my sensitivities could manage, being a fragile flower and all. I stayed in the car, read the NYT, and did my daily Wordle, then the Mini crossword, and Connections. After what seemed like most of the morning, I spotted her through the window, standing at the checkout counter. A few minutes later she was still standing there.
What could go wrong? The credit card is good. There is a debit card if she needs it. What could go wrong? I could help, but that seldom bodes well for me.
I left the car's safety, walked a few steps to the front door of the “spa” and went to the rescue. I had no idea places like that existed. There must have been fifteen or twenty chairs, each with a customer dangling a hand, getting a manicure. Anyway, there was a lot of hand-holding, scraping, and painting going on. That was the half of it. There was another section with huge lounge chairs and buckets of water for customers to put their feet in.
Herself was the first in line at the checkout counter after the shopping center's internet went down and her credit card was useless. There was no sense in me trying to do a workaround when twenty under-thirty-year-olds were working in the place. Not to worry though because doesn’t everyone have a hot spot on their phone? If credit cards don’t work, maybe the debit card will work. Nope. One down.
The lady behind us knew how to make the system work with the help of her toe cutter. Nope. Two down.
“Don’t worry” says the third in line. She knew how to do it. Nope. Three down and you could see the panic set in among the customers checking out and the workers hoping to spend the day cutting and scrapping. Around the entire “spa” you could feel the panic in the air, you could see panic on faces, and you could see people entering a world they didn’t understand.
A woman over thirty, based on her solution, suggested that we all just use cash. Panic! Another world nobody understood. Four down. Five down. Six down. Seven down... Someone suggested writing a check. Ten down. “And then there were none.”
I learned a lot in that thirty minutes. Women are willing to suffer pain and pure brutality to look good. I know I’m not supposed to say that. Let me just say that if it were a choice between the county jail or the “spa” you know which one I would take.
I also learned how an enemy could shut down this country in a flash – blow up the electric grid, the cell network, or just shut down Wi-Fi. We are very vulnerable without our phones and cards. As we Americans try to catch up to the rest of the world by transferring everything to our phones and paying for everything with our phones, we become increasingly dependent on technology that we can’t control.
I suppose that I could just go to the ATM from time to time or ask for cash back at the grocery store, but what would I do with it. To be honest, I do carry a five-dollar bill in my money clip just so that people won’t think that I don’t have five dollars to my name, but it usually stays there for months. I think Bev has a checkbook somewhere. Maybe we should carry a blank check for emergencies. Nah!
By the way, the “spa” solved the problem much like we used to manage difficulties like this. They assumed their customers were honest. They took our phone numbers, called us a few hours later and we gave them our card number. Done!
