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The afterlife often shows up in this life, at least in
conversation. For instance, you often hear something like
He's in Hog Heaven ever since he got that job at the
brewery.
I've guessed that Hog Heaven must be adjacent
to an afterlife populated by Jews or Muslims -- people who
don't eat pork, which thus must make the hogs happy, but
I've never received a definitive opinion from a
theologian.
Among my bytehead friends, there's a recurring hostile
environment called Scuzzy Hell.
The Scuzzy part
derives from SCSI, an acronym for Small Computer System
Interface,
sometimes pronounced sexy
but usually
scuzzy.
The Hell portion derives from hours, days, even weeks of
tinkering with device ID numbers, termination blocks, cable
impedance and a bewildering array of variations -- narrow
SCSI, SCSI-2, wide SCSI, single-ended or differential,
50-pin cables, 25-pin cables, synchronous, asynchronous,
etc. -- all to get a scanner or the like working when the
propaganda on the box says easy hassle-free
installation.
Scuzzy Hell is such a fearsome place that, even though I generally do my own computer work, I gladly pay the $70 or more an hour demanded by the people foolish enough to pass its portals.
Last week I heard of a new terrestrial afterlife when I stopped by a local bookstore and inquired about some books I'd ordered.
They're in UPS Limbo,
the proprietor explained.
They left the warehouse in Oregon a few days ago, and
that's as much as anybody knows of their
whereabouts.
I heard similar tales at a computer store and a gift shop, and I suspect that, if anyone ever wants to analyze changes in rural America during the latter part of the 20th century, United Parcel Service will be a major factor.
When we bought the newspaper in Kremmling in 1975, UPS wasn't quite there yet. Newspapers these days are produced by computers that use stuff available at any office-supply store, but back then, the process was mostly photography, which required specialized chemicals and papers.
The local trucking company was infamous for its glacial speed and uncanny ability to lose track of shipments, and so we had to drive to Denver ourselves when it was time to stock up.
We also had to keep a huge inventory on hand. Then UPS arrived, and I could just pick up the phone when we were running out of something, and presto, we had it in a day or two. Our money that had been tied up in inventory could be put to a more productive purpose, such as feeding the Quillens, and without the need to make the supply runs ourselves, we had more time to do the things we liked to do.
Retailers could likewise reduce inventories, and the little ma-and-pa shop, with timely access to just about any manufacturer's goods, could compete with the big chains that had their own distribution networks.
UPS made rural life more comfortable in other ways. If the garage or the local parts store didn't have the part your old pickup needed, they'd have it the next morning, thanks to UPS. At the newspaper, we didn't have to keep nearly as many spare parts for our machinery -- UPS was like having a huge hardware store down the street.
UPS flowed in both directions. The new ease of shipping small parcels from the boondocks meant that ma-and-pa enterprises could serve national markets. Thus evolved all manner of new enterprises in the hinterlands -- offbeat varieties of honey, home-made jellies and jams, computer hardware and software, dried flowers, pottery, native seeds, just to name a few I've seen around here.
Another important UPS attribute was the geographic knowledge of its drivers -- no matter how obscure or convoluted your address, no matter how far up some one-lane dirt road you lived, they could find you. Other delivery services may have offered overnight express or the like, but they often delivered it to the wrong place.
And of course, we just took it all for granted until the Teamsters went on strike against UPS last week.
A rural America without UPS has every chance of turning into some isolated Third World environment, with empty stores, entrepreneurs unable to ship their products and machinery that doesn't run because nobody can get new parts.
From what I read, the strike concerns pension-fund payments and the company's hiring of part-time rather than full-time workers.
And I really don't care why they're on strike. I just want them to settle, so that we can get out of this awful UPS Limbo.
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