My
iPhone emitted a frightening, high-pitched alert last week just as I
was settling into a nice afternoon nap. My first terrified thought, as
it is July, was: summer house guests!
Then
I remembered I don’t have a summer house. The warning turned out to be
one of those FEMA flash-flood alerts. I think. It flashed by so quickly I
couldn’t read all of it, and then I was unable to retrieve it. I hate
to think how this story may have ended had I been in a car, stalled in a
dried-out riverbed, of which we have so many in New York City.
Still,
I think the people who have designed these weather emergency alerts are
on to a good thing, if we can just tweak them a bit. Call the improved
version the Social Emergency Alert System.
The risk is high for so many social emergencies in the summer, particularly if you live in New York or have a summer house:
There’s
no water, can my two dozen guests come over and shower? My flight’s
been delayed in London and the twins have to be picked up at camp by 5
or they’ll toss them in the lake.
What
about the moment you’ve finally figured out how to use the fancy coffee
maker in your summer house rental and you get the
just-happened-to-be-in-the-neighborhood call from an acquaintance whom
you once told, “Yes, we must get together sometime”?
(Let’s
digress for a moment. Who doesn’t understand that “We must get together
sometime” is code for “Never”? Even if the Earth is decimated by some
Cormac McCarthy-esque apocalyptic horror and we all have to hit the
road, we will not be pushing our possession-laden shopping carts in the
same direction.)
Where was I? The Social Emergency Alert System.
Sure,
many of us have caller ID, but that merely tells you who is calling,
not why. Once the Social Emergency Alert System is in place, these
annoying calls could easily be avoided.
Let us start with that universally dreaded call, which can strike at any season: sick cat.
This
is how sick cat currently plays out: A friend who is going out of town
needs someone to take her sick cat to the vet. You pick up the phone,
and unless you’re already caring for something sicker and higher up the
food chain (and friends generally know whether you have a 2-month-old
infant), you are stuck. So you go over to your friend’s, gently pick up
this cat, and it sinks its teeth into the soft, fleshy part of your hand
between the thumb and finger, causing a bolt of such pure pain that 30
years later you will remember it. Thanks a lot, Lindsay Miller! (I just
chose that name at random.)
I
know what you are thinking: How could a phone know what the caller
intends? Oh, you digital naïf! Write an email to a friend using the word
“bike,” and you’ll be getting ads for bike trips on the screen before
you hit send. The web knows all.
In
the case of the woman I happened to call Lindsay, now married to a guy
named Peter and living in Cambridge, Mass., the Social Emergency Alert
System would make those same scary, extended noises you get in a weather
alert. But you would also get a text:
Lindsay Miller calling. Just Googled “cat diarrhea” and made five-minute call to vet.
Sure,
you could simply not answer the phone, but people with foul-tempered
pets will just keep calling you back. That’s where you really see the
beauty of the Emergency Social Alert System: It doesn’t merely alert you
to the nature of the request, it maps out your escape, step by step.
Mute
TV. Answer phone with wheezing voice. Explain you have bronchial
illness that has left you unable to leave the house and is contagious to
cats. It’s like reverse Lyme disease, but with cats. Pity because you
adore them so. You were just watching the cutest cat video: “Adorable
Kitty Attacks Mean Visiting Nurse.” Apparently it’s gone viral. Like
yourself.
Cat problem solved.
Let’s
try another: A late-afternoon call from friends in Los Angeles on a
summer weekend you’re stuck in the city. Normally you would still pick
up the phone in a flash because these people have a guesthouse and
travel a lot, and they are probably calling to ask you to house-sit
while they are away.
Instead,
you are ambushed with that summer sob story: my stranded kid. You know
how it goes. That Airbnb rental, a perfectly legitimate-sounding
Greenwich Village two-bedroom penthouse for $299 a week, was a setup;
the kid was met with a desperate string quartet who made him sit through
a two-hour rehearsal before stealing his wallet, and now he has no
money and no place to stay. Could you put him up at your place and front
him a few hundred till they track down his aunt on the Cape? And take
him to the airport?
What’s
your escape? Remember, these people have a guesthouse. Never, ever
alienate anyone with a guesthouse, especially if you are a New Yorker,
as it’s the only time you’ll get to sit on a lawn on somebody else’s
dime.
Fear
not! The Social Emergency Alert System, having noted your friends’
previous calls and searches (the New York Police Department, New York
hotels, A.A. meetings) as well as their Brentwood area code, spits out a
text in red blinking lights:
HIGH ALERT, HIGH ALERT! BROKE, STRANDED KID CALL EXPECTED TO HIT IN FIVE MINUTES!
Then,
because of the extreme threat (you do not want to lose that
guesthouse), the Social Emergency Alert System gives you your script:
“Oh, I wish I could talk, but I am frantic! I just discovered my wallet
was stolen and I’ve been trying to get through to the credit card
companies and I’ve got this highly contagious bronchial disease and they
just turned off the water in the building. It’s enough to make me want
to get really, really, drunk. Like stupid, college-kid drunk where you
do things you’ll regret for the rest of your life. By the way, how is
your kid?”
End
of problem. Unless you were stupid enough to read this column on your
mobile device, for all the web to see. You thought you were the only
person smart enough to sign up for the Social Emergency Alert System?
Bye-bye, guesthouse.
