Eddie Lubitsch, The Last Angry Lawyer Weekly Editorial for October 27, 2007

You want to know what’s pushing my buttons this week John? Well I’ll tell you, it’s the fact that I have to push buttons. That’s right buttons, and I have to push more and more of them every day. Take my phone for instance. When I was a little Lubitsch, phones had dials, hence the term, “dial the phone” but nowadays, dials on phones have been replaced by buttons. There are buttons for the numbers 1 thru 9 and zero, just like we had on the dials, but now they have added the “pound sign” and the “star sign.” I want to know why.

There are no phone numbers in existence that contain either the pound sign or the star sign but they are still on my phone and I don’t like it. I also have to push more buttons than ever before whenever I make a call. Because we have too many people in this country with far too many phones, I now have to dial a 1 plus the area code even when I am calling within my own area code. What is the purpose of having an area code if I have to use it in my own area? If I am calling my next door neighbor, I have to push eleven buttons, hell, it would be easier to just go next door and push one button...the door bell.

Now, let’s assume that I push all of the necessary buttons to get through to somebody like the electric company, or the post office, or the Center for Senior Incontinence. First of all, nobody is going to answer the phone live, instead I get a recording that makes me press more buttons. First, I have to press 1 to continue in English. Excuse me, but I thought I was placing a call in America for crying out loud. And in America English is the default language, so I shouldn’t have to press another button just to get the same language I already speak. If you want to make your recording multi-lingual, good for you, but make them press more buttons, not me, a red blooded English speaking American.

After I press the button to speak English, I have to press more buttons depending on who I want to talk to. For service, press one; for repairs, press two, for sales, press three, for the person who concocted this system, press 666. I get so upset about pressing buttons on my phone that I just want to relax with a cup of coffee, but to make a cup of coffee, I have to press more buttons.

I have to press a button to grind the coffee, press a button to brew the coffee, and press yet another button to open the garage door so that I can get in my car and go down to the 7-11 to buy a cup of coffee because I obviously don’t know what the hell I am doing in the kitchen because I forgot to put the coffee pot under the spout where the coffee comes out and now I have the Hill’s Brothers flowing all over the floor.

So I turn on the TV set by PRESSING A BUTTON and change the channel by pressing more buttons and if I don’t press the right buttons the TV goes blank or switches to the VCR or locks onto Telemundo so I can’t understand a darn thing so I try to press 1 for English but that doesn’t work now.

So I leave the TV running amuck and try my luck on the computer but now I am faced with nothing but buttons. I have buttons on the keyboard, buttons on the mouse, buttons, buttons, buttons, it is enough to make me lose my buttons...or my marbles, I don’t even know which one I have any more.

You know what I think of when I hear the words, “Push Button Remote”, I think it means Push Over Remote because the company that makes them thinks I am a pushover because I am using their remote...or so they think. Maybe, I am actually going over to the TV or the Radio and turning it on without using their stinking remote? Maybe I just press the buttons on the TV itself and to hell with their push over remote control. Eddie Lubitsch isn’t a pushover and I don’t need their buttons. I will press the buttons while standing next to the TV set, just like may grandfather did...or would have done had he not died before TV was invented but you know what I mean. I can completely eliminate one set of buttons from my life and if I think about it, I can eliminate some more.

For starters, the doorbell is no longer an option at the Lubitsch estate. If you want to come in you are going to have to use your bare knuckles to knock on my aluminum screen door, so try to knock on the frame instead of the screen part because that doesn’t make any noise and you might punch a hole in it, thus letting flies and mosquitoes inside so I have go and get the can of Raid to kill them and the only way I can activate it is by...PRESSING THE BUTTON – thus eliminating any button gain I had made.

I am even considering having my navel removed with a navelectomy so that I won’t have a belly button any more, but I’ll still have a hot button and somebody is pressing it.

I tell you John, I am ready to press the panic button because we have too many buttons, and the one that worries me most is the one that is in the White House, you know, the button that, when pressed, will launch nuclear missiles – or in the words of the monkey who has his finger on that button – Nuke-ular missiles thus bringing an effective end to life as we know it and I for one am not ready to place a call to the grim reaper quite yet, and, in fact, couldn’t if I wanted to because I don’t know what buttons to press to get a hold of him. So maybe I should just button my lip and slip on a button down collar and stop buttin in to everybody else’s business, but if I did that, I would no longer be known as the Last Angry Lawyer.

That’s all from me for now. Lubitsch over and Lubitsch out.