In the fast lane

Chris Thompson

We want it faster, cheaper and, preferably, without too much legwork.

We want our Quarter Pounders at Wal-Mart, our post offices in the grocery store, and we must, at all times, have an ATM within sight. We want convenient, hassle-free, computerized checkouts at Home Depot.

We want all of the specialists for all of our ailments in one medical building. And we'd really like to take care of all our appointments in one trip.

We've lived in a one-stop world for a long time now. But it's getting tighter, more streamlined. We're tinkering with it, making fast food faster. Internet's nice, but should we really have to wait 10 seconds to get online?

The quality of our consumables is relatively static, or at least it's evolving in a different context. It's the packaging, the delivery, the availability that catches our attention.

A book is a book whether we buy it at the tiny, local bookstore or at Barnes & Noble. But, really, it's just easier to buy it online and let someone else take care of the details. So the local bookstore starves, and Barnes & Noble starts a Web site.

And in our nostalgic moments, we lament the social costs of our demands. Main Street's just an aisle in the SuperMart these days, and, closer to home, construction is just a piece of what we want from our builders.

We want more, we don't want to look too far to get it, and when we find it, well, there's just no point in going back.

But that's OK. We've made a collective decision to speed things up, lower the costs and condense our services. We do it because we can, because it's against our nature to take our foot off the gas and coast to a stop.

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