Lessons From the Infant

Today, the family and I were out shopping at one of those giant stores that sell giant amounts of goods for giant prices--but which are smaller than they would be should the shopper buy the same amount of goods elsewhere and in not so giant volumes. The kids were hungry and getting quite rambunctious...probably because they were hungry. We stopped at the section of the store that has been set aside for serving pizza, shakes, and other delicious, deadly snacks.

I had the wee one in my arms, so my wife took care of ordering, buying, and drink filling. She placed a giant, fizzing cup of Mr. Pibb on the table in front of me and the wee one. She even brought over the Polish Dog and Sauerkraut. As she was asking me how much sauerkraut I wanted, the baby in my arms pulled the Mr. Pibb over into our laps.

Instantly my programming kicked in. You know, the error-filled, buggy programming that we get by watching others. "Well, Dad just got stuff spilled all over him and now he's pissed. Noted." The programming was accessing all the expected Sense-DoS nodes, prepping to flood the body with chemicals associated with anger and frustration. Then the boy in my lap started crying a pitiable cry of fear and confusion as his sensors and processes were overwhelmed by a sudden lap-full of ice-cold...something! The program runtime ended as though someone had tripped the breaker, kicked the power cord and nuked the electric grid (from orbit, of course) all at the same time. Suddenly I saw the situation for what it was: hilarious. The viral program had terminated unexpectedly and quite completely, and the system was better for it in every way.

New program running: "Something has happened. Something that means nothing. Ignore all previous programming and choose how to respond in the moment. Default response: laughter."