This column should be about new beginnings, goals, an analysis of the state’s farm economy (see The financial condition of Idaho agriculture: 2021) and maybe some commentary about hard winters, fertilizer prices and why the heck we are losing so many good extension folks.

This is not that column. Something happened, and I’m still mad about it. Last month, I went on vacation and, midtrip, went to the motel laundry to do a load of wash. I filled the washer with clothes and soap and went to put my change in, but the machine wouldn’t take cash. It indicated it would take credit cards. It lied. To run a single load, I had to download their laundry app (yes, such a thing exists), transfer funds to it (but only in increments of $5) and start the washer with the app through a QR code ($3 per load). Same with the dryer ($1 per load). So, by evil design, they not only extracted 15 minutes of my life I’ll never get back, but they ripped me off $1.

I suppose I might have forgotten the incident by the time the trip ended, but the amusement parks had also gone electronic. My entrance included fingerprint identification. Then, we were expected to navigate the 27,000-acre Disney property with the 2-by-3-inch phone screen (and my thumb can completely wipe out Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, incidentally), and it quickly became apparent we might never find a bathroom ever again. But even if by good fortune we found where we needed to go on the dumb app, in order to get there we had to zoom out and figure out where we were in relation to it – and that looks so simple – like Adventure Land is just two steps to the left (but we all know that isn’t true because there is a Toy Story shop, a princess shop, a bear jamboree and a pirate shop between them, all flanked by eateries, so don’t believe any of that “two steps” crap).

We also had to use the QR codes to download menus at restaurants. And now even the airplanes no longer offer screens on seat backs to show movies – but they do have a place to clamp your phone in, plug it in and watch your own movies on your own little 2-by-3 screen (… how thoughtful).

A vacation was supposed to get me away from my phone, but it only amplified the problem. I ended up looking at this 2-by-3 phone screen more hours per day on this vacation than on any other day of last year, so I can say with complete confidence: The system is now officially broken.