I was struggling with what to write about today, and then a topic just dumped itself in my lap when I went out to take a dip in the hot tub. Let me paint a picture for you: I have a hot tub at my apartment complex; it’s quite nice and right near my front door. I had noticed two women in there when I went in to put things away, and when I came back out to go in, there were two guys there as well. I didn’t get the sense that they were boyfriends, more like boyfriend-wanna-bes; clearly they knew the girls but they still felt uncomfortable around them. One of the women was sorta cute but the other was very attractive and these guys were on the make, for sure. The women were in the tub but the guys were too cool to get in. I jumped right in, of course, barely noticing this whole scene, and they paid zero attention to me. As I got in, though, the jets turned off. One of the two guys - sensing an opportunity - heroically went over to get the jets started again.

Now, as a quick aside, we have a silver button on the wall that starts the jets and then they turn off after about 15 minutes. It’s a simple system: you push the button, the jets turn on. If you push the button again, the jets turn off. That’s it. However, they do take a couple of seconds to ramp up, as anybody who’s interacted with a hot tub knows.

Now to the point of this story: as someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about people, and brains, and how brains work, and how humans think - and also as someone who has designed user interfaces - what happened next shouldn’t have surprised me, but it still did, and served as a reminder of who we really are deep down as a species. What ensued was about 5 minutes of the most hilarious, Monty-Python-esque absurdity, better than any SNL comedy sketch. First, of course, he pressed the button about 15 times, way too hard. That didn’t work. The girl said “just push it once”. He pushed it (once). The jets bubbled a little bit. He got impatient and pushed it again. Of course now they turned off. He waited. You could almost see the sweat beading on his brow as testosterone flooded his veins. His alpha male status was dripping away. He panicked. He pushed the button about 5 times. His friend came over and he shot him daggers with his eyes. Now, we were in full-on monkey-tribe mode. Nobody was thinking (except possibly me). I considered opening my mouth and saying something and thought better of it.

This seriously went on for about 3 or 4 minutes. Every thing was tried. At one point the other girl - not the one he was trying to impress - said “you have to hold it down for 20 seconds”. (Not true, by the way). He held it down for 20 seconds. I think this confused the system because they sorta half came on. He said “hey that worked”. The other guy said “nah, man, they don’t look right”. I honestly thought they might get in a fight. It was actually hard not to speak up and say something. Finally, sputtering, the jets decide - despite being abused - to fully kick in. Visibly relieved, the guy came back over to the tub. Problem solved.

Sometimes I - as all of us do - like to think that I am some kind of erudite thinking machine, capable of higher-order logic and the finest of mental gymnastics.

But honestly we should be surprised that any of us manage to turn on the hot tub.