Ramblings and Ruminations

I Need a Good Insecticide

"Have you seen this?" my wife asked.

I sighed and set aside the wordle game on my phone. I have tried "yes" once but was caught with her follow up question, "well, what do you think it was?"

So I said, "no,"

"This woman is reporting insect sized drones flying around her head and surveilling her."

These days, my wife has turned to her phone for her morning news. We stopped the morning paper when the headline read "Big cantaloupe sale today at Kroger's".

I guessed, "facebook?"

"SCP LIfe," she replied.

Well, technically that is facebook. But It is our community facebook group, so that adds a little bit more credibility to the claim. These are our neighbors, and their picture is right alongside their posts. Postings in this group usually run more to lost cats, requests for contractor recommendations, or complaints about the homeowner association.

"Did she catch one?" I asked. It wasn't an idle question. I have a theory, but more on that later.

"Uh, no. She says she swatted at it with a broom. Wait, let me read it:"

"I watched it as I swept my walkway and finally got a good look at it a few times. I swatted at it with my broom and narrowly missed it after it kept darting very near me. It took a dive and took off rapidly."

"Just one? You said 'drones'."

"Maybe it was just one. Somebody said it was probably from the HOA, checking to see if she was complying with the community rules."

"Naw," I replied. "The HOA is too cheap. They just send a girl around in a golf cart and a camera."

"That's what Donny said."

Donny LeBlanc is our community expert. No matter what opinion someone expresses, Donny has a counter to it. There is no point in arguing with Donny. It could go on for weeks. We just ignore Donny. Every community has one.

My wife was reading further. "Here's someone who says it was a UAP from space. Aliens are keeping track of us."

"That is an oxymoron. You can't call it an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and then identify it as being an alien drone."

"Well, what do you think it was?"

There it was. The question. I am no Donny LeBlanc, but I had been thinking about this very topic lately.

"Do you remember when I switched you over to a Norton Private Browser for your web searches?"

"Yes. To cut down on cookies and other tracking by web companies."

"Right. And it did slow them down for a while, but lately I have been seeing an increase in targeted ads."

I pointed to my phone. "Just this morning, I had an ad for a sudoku book."

"So what?" my wife asked. "You said your old book was full."

"Exactly. I SAID it. But I didn't act on it. So how did they know? I think Google analytics is worried about the privacy browsers. I think they are worried about potentially losing business with the ad companies because of it. I think they have done something about it."

I took a breath. "Google is sending us insect drones in every package that we get from the web. They escape when we open the packages and set up housekeeping in the curtains, watching everything we say and do and reporting it back."

I thought my wife would tell me I was crazy. I wanted to be wrong. Instead, she grabbed her ipad and started swiping and scrolling. "What are you doing?" I asked.

She looked at the top of the windows with a frown. "I'm buying new curtains,"