It's 2025...

Recently, I went to breakfast with a work colleague. It was a social/work meal, and when we got to the work stuff, it got really depressing. Let's just say that 2025 has not been a good year for my line of work, and it only continues to iterate badly.

So there we were, finishing our food, the elephant finally out of the bag. There was no way to fix what had happened last week. Once upon a time, such as, in the beginning of 2025, there would have been a way to fix the issue, but now, all the avenues to problem solve have been taken away, yet the expectations for outcomes have not been adjusted. We were, simply put, utterly fucked.

I said it, the quiet thing, out loud. We were fucked. My meal companion nodded. I think he expected the answer, but hearing it made it hurt worse. We slipped into silence and sipped our coffee. In some ways this new development was freeing, knowing that no matter how hard we worked, the outcome would not change. Then a truck pulled up to the parking spot outside my window.

A middle aged man with earphones hooked to his ears got out of the car. A woman and a young girl also got out and went into the building. Behind the guy stood a set of gas pumps, complete with windshield washer fluid and squeegees.

The guy moved like a middle aged dad. And by that, I mean, he didn't appear drunk. He just looked like a dude who had his family in the car and yet he was plugged into his phone via bluetooth.

He reached into the center console of the vehicle, grabbed a white can, and then stood on the running board next to the driver's seat. The door was open, and he was angled to face the windshield.

I watched him turn on the windshield wipers. He then threw part of the contents of the can at the windshield. The wipers caught the liquid and whipped it right into his face. He coughed, shut his eyes, and tossed some more of the can's contents onto the glass. Again, he got hit in the face with the fluid. He shifted, and I saw he held a can of White Claw. He was trying to clean his windshield with White Claw.

"You should look at this," I said to my friend.

He leaned forward and peered through the window.

Now, the woman (presumably his wife) and the girl (sure looked like his daughter) were back. It was 9:18 am, and they each held an ice cream sandwich, which they ate while watching their husband/father, continue to throw White Claw at the windshield.

"That can't be White Claw, right? I mean it would be foamy, right?" my friend said.

The man, wised up, now had his head in the car, and was flinging the White Claw at the glass with most of his body in the cab of the car. A fresh splash of White Claw hit the windshield, foaming proudly before the wipers caught it and flung it off the glass.

"It's foaming," I said.

"I just..." my buddy said.

We watched the man empty the White Claw on the glass, his family noshing on their pre-9:30am ice cream treat, the window washing stations open and evident not forty feet from where he parked. Yet, when he was done, the glass was in fact much cleaner.

And then the family loaded up into the truck and he backed out of the space.

"You think we should call the cops?" my friend said.

"I'm not convinced he's drunk," I said.

And I say that knowing, that only a drunk person could possibly make that decision, except, it's 2025. Anything and everything is possible.

Part of me was horrified. Part of me wanted to cry. And then I thought, I need some of that. That spirit that is willing to solve a problem when the answer is simple, but the simple answer is no longer viable. The squeegees no longer exist for me, or apparently for him, and yet he got the job done. I had not considered bringing the energy of a middle aged man throwing White Claw at a windshield to the professional sphere.

And it's so clear to me now that 2025 is obviously the time for that.