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A Rare Probability Event in Modern Life

I re-tell a rare probability event in modern life that happened today to me which has illustrative comments on our modern civilization and personal lives.

·       Because of advancing age and life activities related to them, our family have gone from keeping two cars to  just one car. I have written about it in http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-1127277.html

·       We survived quite well with one car this way so far for 10 months with no inconveniences

·       My wife and I do physical exercises three time a week regularly at two different places at different times for various good reasons. But on every Friday, I need to first take my wife to her places for exercise and then go for my own exercises and return to pick her up. Again this involve a small detour and some extra driving in town - no big deal or inconvenience.

·       Modern car do not need an actual key (but only the proximity of a “key” to operate the car).

·       Today I started our routine of joint exercise times by driving my wife to her place of exercise when she said I should go add gasoline to the car since it is running low and it is on my way to my place.

·       This is all very routine for this particular day early in the morning. You don’t give this a second thought.

·       What did not occur to me is that because this is an early regular routine and the fact we shall return home immediately afterwards, I neglected to carry my own key and phone with me.

·       As a result at the gas station I shut off the engine and fill it with gas, but can no longer re-start my car (the car started before because my wife had her car key with her when I started to drive her to her place first).

·       Without a phone, I cannot engage Lyft or Uber. The gas station attendant was kind enough to try to call a taxi for me. But because of Lyft and Uber, the taxi business in our small town has practically become nonexistent. Other taxi business either has no car available or unwilling to come.

·       In desperation I began to call friends whose phone number I happen to remember (this is also becoming rare since nowadays you just click the name without actually dialing the number). But all of them have already left for work on a weekday. Fortunately, one number I happen to remember and called found the friend working out at home. Thus, she was able to come and pick me up and let me get my key and solve my problem.

·       This sequence of events let me realize how much we depend on modern conveniences and how fragile each link is. One broken link due to carelessness can create sever problems about thing we take for granted without thinking.