The world has gone mad. We all know this. We have experienced a lifetime of everything being made faster and cheaper. The result has been so many parts of everyday experience that have been sanded off and thrown away in the name of efficiency. Or maybe it is just the passage of time, with new generations taking over and making changes to the landscape that was once so familiar to many of us. Or maybe it is just me. Though I don’t think so.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to begin a treatise on ways the world has been wobbling on its axis of late. But I do know that I miss certain things that were in the world that was. Here are a few random thoughts about some of these.

No. 1: People who answered business telephones. Don’t we all remember the receptionist? Back when I was lawyering, I used to call other lawyers a lot. I always looked forward to calling the members of a local firm, if only to hear their receptionist answer the phone. This was because of the way she pronounced the last name of the firm – Douglas. While you or I (or even old Mr. Douglas) might grace that name with only two syllables, that receptionist gave it three – Doug-A-Las, with a machine gun-like staccato that gave the firm name some real punch.

But now, we have the wonderful “auto attendant”. Whose message probably has not recently changed, no matter what that disembodied voice tries to tell us. And who offers me the choices that some young programmer or consultant figured several years ago would be the most likely reasons I might be calling. Say what you will about those young programmers, but they have (had?) an uncanny ability to choose options that do not fit any of the reasons for my call.

Adding AI to the mix has not helped. I recently tried to call a parcel delivery company after its email invited me to let them know how I rated their service. I wanted to rate their service because they delivered my package to my neighbor. But there was no place on the website to rate the service, causing me to call. The AI agent invited me to state the reason for my call, and then proceeded to offer me information about shipping rates. With great effort I made it to the regular menus, which asked me if I received my package or did not receive my package. If I had to walk next door and get my package myself, is that receiving or not receiving? Oh for a live human being to answer the phone. Even if that person would only use two syllables for Douglas.

No. 2: Milkshakes served in big metal cups. Yes, I know that modern milkshakes (which are probably called “shakes” because they cannot legally be called a “milkshake”) come from a machine that blops them right into the cup. But there was a time when a milkshake was made by scooping ice cream into a tall metal cup, adding milk, then putting the cup to a machine with a long spindle that would mix the shake right there in the cup. Then the waitress (nobody ever ordered a milkshake in a place with male waiters) would put two things in front of you – an empty plastic cup and the tall metal cup full of creamy cold milkshake.

I think the last one of those I got was from a little lunch counter that was in a storefront close to my office in the late 1980’s. Nothing went better than a thin, flavorful hamburger right off the grille than a milkshake from a metal cup, which gave you about a glass and a half for drinking out of the thick, red plastic drinking cup. I do not drink as many milkshakes as I used to. I like to imagine that it is because I am trying to take better care of myself. But just between us, I think it is because nobody tempts me with real milkshakes mixed in a stainless steel cup.

No. 3: Original Taco Bell green sauce. While we are on the topic of food, I can add another item from my past. And one, incidentally, that I never, ever paired with a milkshake. Back in the 1970’s when I was introduced to the wonder that was Taco Bell, I quickly learned about that delightful thing called a burrito. People who grew up in other places likely learned about burritos where better ones were available, but we take what we get. Except for sauce, because Taco Bell offered both the familiar red sauce and what they called their “spicy green sauce”.

The “spicy green sauce” was not all that spicy, but boy did it improve a basic cheap bean burrito. Until Taco Bell discontinued it. They have introduced other sauces through the years, and once even claimed to re-offer the old classic green sauce. But none of them do the trick for me. Even the old retro sauce failed to hit the right note. Which is probably a good thing, because it keeps me from hitting the Bell more than a couple of times a year.

No. 4: Good cheap used cars. Quite some time ago I wrote about a condition that plagues me – car fever. It strikes me every spring and every fall, and sends me diving into used car listings in search of something new (to me) and exciting. And cheap. Cheap is relative, of course. When I first started buying cheap used cars that number was under $1,000. By the mid 90’s it was around $2,500. Now it is probably about $5k for something that drives right and looks decent.

Cheap used cars in my youth tended to be 10-15 year old Chrysler sedans owned by elderly people who put State Farm or AAA stickers on the back bumpers. These people kept the oil changed, brushed touch-up paint into every stone chip and were absolutely certain that after 10 years and 75,000 miles that a car was used up. I knew that a pampered old car like that was just getting started and I drove cars like that for years. But now? Everyone keeps cars forever, and either trades them in or has them snapped up by a flipper who triples the price. And low miles is anything under 200,000. Or right before the need for expensive repairs like head gaskets, a/c compressors or transmissions.

I read somewhere that these days you have to be rich to afford a cheap used car, and there may be some truth to that. So, as much as I drool over online ads (imagining how these cars are supposed to be instead of how they actually are) I keep finding reasons to drive what I have. This result certainly keeps Marianne happy and makes gobs of financial sense. But this does not alleviate my condition, which will continue to cause me great distress until about Thanksgiving.

No. 5: Old people. By this, I mean people older than me. I liked living in a world where people older than me were in charge of things. Because I trusted them. “They have been around so they probably know what they are doing” was my opinion. Now? Everyone running everything is my age or younger. And do you know what? I know these generations well enough to know that they probably have no idea what they are doing.

This could probably be its own blog post, but we Boomers make terrible old people. I miss old ladies who wore baggy housedresses and old men who wore hats and smoked pipes and kept the thick cases for their sunglasses in the pockets of their button-up shirts. Today’s old people still dress like the people I went to college with. And the famous ones do ads touting facial treatments to keep us looking like we did at 40. Or to make us think we will look like we did at 40 as they rake in our money. Old people used to know how to be old people. We boomers seem to have no idea.