Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for February 17, 2020

Arlo, my dude .. this is ‘now’. It’s called the UPS store.

“Open the mailbox doors, Hal…”

Now if Arlo can just work from home …

I don’t think Jimmy’s heard of Amazon Lockers.

I bet JJ starts every toon idea with these stick figures

Amazon lockers?

This is nothing new except that these boxes are designed to go on your porch. It’s a one-way package deposit receptacle that bolts to the floor.

Anyone else old enough to remember “milk chutes”? (no that’s not a dirty euphemism) The milkman put the order in the hole in the wall between outdoors and indoors. (and the occasional kid had to climb through if someone forgot keys)

I do this now with deliveries to my porch.

It is Now! UPS hands off to the USPS. I have signed up for messaging on status. When it is delivered in my mailbox or at my back door, I get a message on my iPhone.

That’s why I like pay at the pump, no human interaction.

Arlo has the coronavirus on his mind….

Considering the flu and the coronavirus, no human interaction for a while sounds desirable.

Bring back the mail slot in your door.

Upgrade the box to a robot; THAT’S the future!

But I know what he means. Humans…sometimes…

Speaking of the flu, a member of senior management was out last week. She was supposed to be out for the entire week, but she returned on Thursday because she had no fever and “was no longer contagious.” Maybe. Maybe not.

She wanted to have a meeting on Thursday so that I could tell her how to do her job, but I told her that I will be glad to meet with her this week. I told her that a man my age can’t take any chances with the flu.

She wasn’t happy. So what? As if I could care.

Isn’t that pretty much the way it is now?

I think my wife says that – No human interaction

Just this past week I ordered wireless headphones from Amazon, on-line, on Monday at 1PM. They were delivered to my door by Tuesday at 11:30AM! I didn’t talk to a single human. I didn’t have to leave the house, drive the car! Now that’s the future! I don’t know how shopping malls can compete with that kind of service.

I guess we’re ahead of the game.

Huh? Except for the signal, this is how it happens in most of Canada today. And you can get a “signal” by asking the carrier to notify you.

Or maybe “that’s the joke”.

Third encounters of the close kind.

I have a box just that size I put inside my fence at the front. Open end towards the house, so you can’t tell from the road that there’s anything in it. Amazon puts deliveries in it and sends me a photo of my packages nestled in the box. The future is now.

Geeze, have we really become this antisocial that we don’t want to ever see another human being? That’s just sad.

A month from today is St. Patrick’s Day!

Don’t forget about the self-imposed surveillance state.

And look how skinny we will be/are in this future!!!!

They already have that, Amazon Lockers, you can order and have it delivered there instead of your house…

My 90 year old had new neighbors move in next door to her on one side – two “young men”. She keeps telling us that she is going to report them for running a business out of their house (which may or may not be legal depending on the business here). She knows this because they continually get huge numbers of large packages delivered – so they must be a business. And yes there are a lot of large boxes on their driveway all the time. It is a subdevelopment so there is not a lot of people going past to take things.

My point being that nosy neighbors see the packages being delivered also.

If he only knew how right he is……..