So the other night I was watching on the television a show. And in it a man was trying to open his safe. It was a combination safe. He was spinning the big black dial, to and fro, in some obvious, mumbling difficulty, about remembering the correct numbers.

Watching this, I suddenly realized, that I don't know, how a combination safe, actually works. I know there is something in there, in the safe, called "tumblers." But I don't really know what they are. I know that, generally, you have to hit, with the black dial, three numbers—turning left, right, left; or maybe right, left, right—and if you perform this operation properly, the safe will open. But I don't know what the actual mechanism is—how the safe, actually, works.

And I lay there wondering: how long, has it been? That I haven't known this? That I haven't known, how works, a combination safe? Have I always not known, how such a safe works? Or did I know, once upon a time, but the knowledge, it has since swirled down the drain, of the creeping dementia? I don't know. I'm pretty sure, that I have never known, how such a thing works. And then I wondered: why? Why, have I never known?

Soon the show, on the television, it was getting away from me; and then it was lost to me, and I no longer knew what was going on there. I really don't know, now, whether the guy ever successfully entered his safe, or not. Because I was tumbling, there in my mind, which was being revealed to me as a vast empty cavern of non-knowledge, through all the things, that I don't know. There seemed to be an endless amount of them. And it is, now, three days later. And I am still counting. All the ways. Of what I don't know. I believe I could still be so counting. With the last breath. Of my life.

I don't know how the cars work. I sorta used to. When I entered the automobile world, back there in the last millennium, it was with Ford Falcons. You opened the hood, of a Ford Falcon, and there, in the engine compartment, you beheld about nine parts. Even I, a person in no way mechanically inclined, was, after a time, able to learn the function, pretty much, of each of these parts. I could even, sometimes, work on them. Because there were only the nine parts there, under the hood, there was plenty of room to move, and, if you dropped the tool, it would just fall through and clunk on the ground below. There was more empty space, under the hood, than not.

They do not now have the cars like that. Not any more. Now, when you open the car-hood, you behold about six hundred thousand parts. They are all intensively crammed together, piled on top of each other, connected by hundreds of hoses and wires and clamps and unnameable doohickeys. And there is no empty space, there under the hood, at all. You absolutely cannot see any ground, at all, below the parts. All that there is, in there, is parts. And, if you drop a tool, into this sargasso sea of parts, you will most likely require the services of a wizened and practiced automotive Jacques Cousteau, in order to fish it out.

My friend, all summer, she has been dealing with a balky air conditioner, there in her car. Every time the auto goes into the mechanic, when it comes out, the a/c soon develops a new Problem. And so, it goes back in, again. Thus, we have come to refer to this mechanic, as F Troop.

But, probably, it actually isn't his fault. Because, first, probably, it is my fault. This is because, back there in June or so, when the car was going back to F Troop for something like the third round, I joked that the air conditioner, no doubt it would not be fully healed, until autumn arrived, and it was no longer needed. Even though I was Joking, still, I had made a Picture. And, now, here it is, September 6, and the car is in there with F Troop, yet again, the air conditioner still balking, said unit obviously damned to continue in crippledness, until the icy winter blasts, begin blowing down from the Arctic.

This time, F Troop, he is putting the car "on the computer." He thinks the car, it may have psychological problems. And these Problems, they are beyond his ability, or indeed the ability of any Mechanic Man, to address. Only "the computer," may it Know. And so, that is the second Problem. Which is: they are now making the cars, beyond the capacity, of the humans, to understand them.

I don't know that this is a good idea.

I walk into the kitchen, and understand that I don't know how the refrigerator works, or the stove. I know that the refrigerator keeps things cold, and I know that the stove makes things hot, but that is about the limit of my knowledge. I don't really know the details, of either. I have some fuzzy idea that atoms are involved. When atoms move slowly, things are cold; when they move fast, things are hot. I think maybe I once saw a picture of this, in a School Book. But that's about it. As far as what I know. Or think I know.

A stove, at least if it is a gas stove, it is pretty easy to determine that it makes things hot, because you can see the flame. And everyone knows, that flames are hot. And flames are hot, because . . . uh . . . well . . . they feel like it?

In my favorite story, "For A Breath I Tarry," a couple of mobile super-intelligent computer machines, in a world post-humans, they are discussing the breathtaking non-knowledge, of humans, like me.

"Man," said Mordel, "possessed a basically incomprehensible nature. I can illustrate it, though: he did not know measurement."

"Of course he knew measurement," said Frost, "or he could never have built machines."

"I did not say that he could not measure," said Mordel, "but that he did not know measurement, which is a different thing altogether."

"Clarify."

Mordel drove a shaft of metal downward into the snow.

He retracted it, raised it, held up a piece of ice.

"Regard this piece of ice, mighty Frost. You can tell me its composition, dimensions, weight, temperature. A man could not look at it and do that. A man could make tools which would tell him these things, but he still would not know measurement as you know it. What he would know of it, though, is a thing that you cannot know."

"What is that?"

"That it is cold," said Mordel, and tossed it away.

Here is what I don't know about computers. A long time ago, I think back even in the last millennium, I bought one of the first Mac Minis. It was a fine little machine. It did everything I wanted. But then, the years, they started to go by. And, out there in the world, the computers, they kept "advancing." I don't know why, really, that is. This never-ending, "advancing." I suspect it has something to do with keeping up with the anathema of the advertisements: today, the common dancing, prancing advertisement, there on a tube, it requires more computer power, than did the first spacecraft to land on the moon. And all this "advancing," it was leaving my little Mac Mini, behind.

Eventually, I received a notice, from the Apple people, that my machine, it was no longer "supported," because it was "pre-Intel chip." The Safari browser, which for some time had been, as my brother would have described it, "coughing up blood," ceased to be useful at all. I switched over to Firefox, but soon, it didn't want me either. I then stumbled upon these luddites, who had developed a Firefox-knockoff called TenFourFox, which continued to "support" pre-Intel-chip Macs. These luddites did this, I was given to understand, because, in their Reality, the Intel chip, it is an artifact of Satan. I didn't get too deeply into their obsession, because I already have quite enough obsessions of my own, thank you very much. I just used their tool.

But then, it became actually farcical, how much the venerable old Mac Mini, it was not working. Because of all the "advancing." So I went out and bought another one. An advantage of a Mac Mini, is that you can own an Apple product, without requiring an outlay of so much cash, you are first obligated to sell a child into slavery. I also purchased a new monitor—also inexpensive—because the one I had been using was roughly the size of a postage stamp.

I get these machines home, and then came the terrifying process of hooking them up to all the other machines: the keyboard, the mouse, the router, the Ooma, the Roku, the television, the iron lung, etc. Eventually, I accomplish this mission. And: nothing.

I don't know all the exact details, not any longer, because the experience was so intensely embarrassing, that I tried to forget all about it, but I think I was receiving a notice on the monitor saying said machine was not receiving "a signal." So I unplugged all the 364,567 cords, and then plugged them in again. I cut the power to everyone, and then engaged it again. Still: nothing. I try all this, many more times, in various combos. Nah. Nothing.

So, I get on the phone, and I call the Best Buy men. The salesman, he had said, that if I experienced any problems, I could call their "geek squad," or some such, and these wizards, they would Help me. One of the wizards, he came on the line. And I described my angst. He then asked:

"Did you turn it on?"

"What?" responded I.

"The Mac Mini. Did you turn it on?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, with creeping dread. "'Did I turn it on?'"

"The button in the back," he replied patiently. "The power button. Did you push it in, and then hear the happy little C-major Apple start-up tone?"

No, I realized, I had not done this. But how could I confess such, to this person? He would immediately dispatch Science Men to my home, and they would cut off my head, and dissect my brain, and then write many learned Papers, on the man—me—who was clearly too stupid, to live. And yet. Did. Anyway.

Numbly, I pressed the power button. And heard, then, the happy little C-major Apple start-up tone.

On the other end of the phone line, the Geek man, he heard it, too. "See?" he said. "There you go."

I knew that this Geek man, as soon as he rang off, he would go onto the intertubes, and there find a picture of me—he knew my name, from the sales receipt—and then he would hang it up in the Geek room, and, then, every day, he and all the other Geeks, they would point at it, and laugh and laugh, about the idjit too stupid, to turn on the power, to the computer.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "How many people have this problem."

Great. My picture would go up in a whole dumb-and-dumber rogues' gallery. Of idjits too stupid. To turn on the power. To the computer.

I don't know how the power works, in the humans. And neither does anyone else.

This was explained to me one day by my doctor. It came amdist one of his ritual incantations to persuade me not to smoke the cigarettes. These incantations never worked, but they were at least always varied, and informative. This particular one was centered on heart disease. He said that while most people associate smoking with lung cancer, in truth smoking kills more people through the heart, than the lungs. He proceeded to explain how the heart works. Until he arrived at the mystery. Each heartbeat, he said, begins with an electrical spark. But no one knows. Where that spark. Comes from.

This man is no longer my doctor. Because he got tired. Of the insurance companies. So he retired. To a hospital ship. Off the coast of Vietnam. Where he provides free medical care. With no insurance companies.

I don't know why. They don't have free hospital ships. Off the coast of the United States. And I don't know why. Are the insurance companies.

On any given day, and somewhere around 100 separate times, I don't know where are my glasses. I am nearsighted, but for any close work, these glasses are not only useless, but get in the freaking way: through them, I, basically, can't see. What needs to be seen. So, I have to take them off. And then, when I need them again, I can't find them. I could obviate this problem, or so I have been told by the Eye people, by getting trifocals. But since I do not have the bank account of Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett, I am not any time soon obtaining any trifocals. So, off and on, off and on, off and on, all the livelong day, and into all the night, the glasses go.

It is completely absurd—because, so often, when I am looking for my glasses, I can't find them, simply because I am not wearing my glasses: I need my glasses, to find my glasses. When this does not birth but irritation, exasperation, I try to reflect on the Wisdom of Lew Welch, in re something of a similar situation:

Difficulty Along The Way

Seeking Perfect Total Enlightenment
is looking for a flashlight
when all you need the flashlight for
is to find your flashlight

I don't know why there is even the nearsightedness. This seems like something that would have been bred out of the humans, back when there were veldts, and running from the predators. But, apparently not.

I know the nearsightedness has something to do with a gene. I don't know exactly how. I know that crippled genes, they cause all sorts of Badnesses, in living creatures, and I know that I am very lucky, to bear a bad gene burden as relatively trivial as nearsightedness. Because there are really very many really bad genetic defects out there. I don't know why. I don't know why there was once this little kitten born, Sluggo, who has very jolly, and roly-poly, and sweet, but he had Manx in him, and sometimes Manxness, besides the no-tail, causes the digestive system to be genetically mutilated, and so, his was, and, it was, the bad gene, eventually, fatal, and while he was still so small, and there was nothing to be done, and so, though he was really looking forward, to a long and happy life, his life, it wasn't long, and it wasn't happy.

I don't know where Sluggo was, before I met him. And I don't know where Sluggo is, now.

I don't know why sometimes I am an asshole. I wish I weren't. And I don't know why, since they are always inventing all the Pills, they don't invent one that is an assholery-suppressant. Everybody could take one in the morning, it would be time-release, and so, throughout the day, and all of the night, there would be no assholery, and all through the land. Just so long. As everybody. Took their pills.

I don't know why there are people of The Hairball. I really don't. The other day, I am on the bus, and a couple of humans, a man one, and a woman one, begin singing hymns, to The Hairball. They are all the usual hymns, the usual Untruths. The Hairball, he is a maverick. He is not part of the establishment. He is a successful businessman. He gets things done. He is incorruptible. He knows the common people. He will stop the terrorism, by bombing all the ISIS, and making the Mooslems not be in the America. That will be the peace part. The prosperity part, that will be where he kicks out all the Mexicans, who are taking all the jobs. Except for the Negroes—who take all the jobs for which they are not qualified, because of "political correctness." And so on.

They are meanwhile revealing a little something about their own lives, these two. Like: they are both convicted felons, and both are currently serving terms of probation. Which means that, if they were merely to experience a Senator Rawkins transformation, they would no longer be people of The Hairball. They couldn't. Because they wouldn't qualify. Instead, they would be Other.

In the true-life documentary story Finian's Rainbow, Senator Rawkins, he is a boorish bigot, who hates the black people. An Irish lass, in frustration, one day says to him, in his presence: "I wish you were black." Unbeknownst to her, she is standing at the time near a buried pot of leprechaun gold. As everyone knows, such gold, it grants wishes. And so, Senator Rawkins, he becomes black.

So I murmured, there on the bus, to the two people of The Hairball: "I wish you were brown." But, it didn't work. They remained white. People. Of The Hairball. The bus, I guess, wasn't passing over any leprechaun gold, at the time. I don't know why.

Then I get home, and I'm puttering around, and I notice that, there in the fish tank, a new molly brood has arrived. There are four adult mollies in there, and they are up to a lot of fucking, because this is the third outpouring of young'uns, in the past 40 days. When these babies get bigger, no way are they all going to fit in the tank. These fucking mollies, they are going to turn me into one of those eccentric fish people, who have tanks all over the house. I will be reduced to skulking through the streets at night, robbing from widows and orphans, in order to feed the fish jones.

A very interesting thing is that, of the four adults, one is completely black, and the other three are almost nearly so. Yet all of the babies, they are white. A few have maybe a couple of tiny black specks. But that's it. The one adult I acquired black, but the other three were mostly white, with a few black spots; but, over the months, the black has taken over. And the fish girl, across the street, there at the feed store, she says it is likely the babies, they will eventually go all black too. She says that's just the way that mollies roll. They'll start out white, but then decide to go black.

And I am thinking: I don't know why, the humans, they can't be like this. Born white, with maybe just a couple black spots. But then, as the months and years go by, they increasingly go black. It would be pretty hard, I think, to have the racism, in a world like that. I know that, soon, we will have the animal-human hybrids. So why can't the Science Men, they put some molly genes, into the humans, so that all of the white humans, they eventually become black? Or, maybe, the Science Men, they could come up with kaleidoscopic skin coloration. So that all of the humans, from birth to death, they would be continuously wheeling, through all of the colors, of the rainbow. I bet. The Science Men. They could pull that off. I don't know why not.