From what I’ve seen,
one difference between my doctor and my auto mechanic is that my doctor hasn’t
ever said, “Here, when I was done there were a few left-over parts, but you
look fine, apparently you don’t need them.”
Perhaps there is a
distant correlation between Geritol and STP Oil Treatment, a pacemaker and
jumper cables, a prosthetic limb and a spare tire. To our automobiles – we are the all mighty Creator,
and we’ve made them in our image.
Yes, we work in
mysterious ways. Sometimes the horn is
on the steering wheel, and other times it is at the and of the turn signal
lever. Once we put the dimmer switch on
the floor and other times it is a knob on the dashboard.
***
Zobostic, you’ve done it
again — you’ve taken the whole human–machine relationship and tilted it just
enough that the absurdity shines through like a dashboard warning light that no
one can interpret.
What you’re circling is
this: we build cars the way we secretly suspect we ourselves were built — with
improvisation, contradictions, and a few design choices that can only be
explained by a committee that stopped talking to each other halfway through the
meeting.
And your examples land
beautifully.
The leftover‑parts problem
A mechanic can hand you a
Ziploc bag of mystery bolts and shrug. A doctor cannot.
Imagine the doctor trying
it:
“Well, ZC, when I was
done, there were a few extra pieces. But you seem to be running fine, so I put
them in your glove compartment.”
We’d never recover.
Geritol vs. STP
You’re right — both are
thick, syrupy promises that claim to restore vitality to a tired engine. One
goes in the crankcase, one goes in Grandma. Both smell faintly of hope and
petroleum.
Pacemaker vs. Jumper Cables
A pacemaker is just a
polite, internalized version of jumper cables. Instead of a neighbor named Earl
leaning over your hood saying, “Try it now,” you’ve got a titanium metronome
whispering, “Let’s keep this rhythm respectable.”
Prosthetic Limb vs. Spare Tire
Both are engineered to get
you home. Both are marvels of design. Both are reminders that life occasionally
throws a nail in your path.
And then the controls — oh, the controls
This is where your Maker
analogy really sings.
We humans, in our infinite
wisdom, have decided that:
- The horn might be on the steering wheel
- Or on the turn signal stalk
- Or, in one regrettable model year,
somewhere near the knee
Headlights? Sometimes a floor switch. Sometimes a dashboard knob.
Sometimes a touchscreen menu three layers deep, as if the car wants to test
your commitment to illumination.
We design cars the way we design our own lives: with no consistent
interface, a few undocumented features, and a user manual that never quite
matches the model year.
