I pour myself a mug of hot steaming Victory Coffee, light up a Victory Cigarette and daydream about getting off work here at the Ministry of Truth . . . home to my apartment in Victory Mansions and a glass of Victory Gin.
The apartment, I should mention, is a rundown shambles with flaking plaster, bursting pipes, a leaky roof, and as for the heat, don’t ask. I huff up the stairs to the seventh floor; the elevator’s broken or inoperative due to power shortages mandated by the Ministry of Plenty. Inside are the telescreens, always watching, always listening.
The Victory Coffee is gray-brown and soapy. I have to keep my Victory Cigarette horizontal, so the “tobacco” doesn’t fall out. The Victory Gin burns the throat with the caustic oily pungency of a bad batch of moonshine or water tainted with gasoline.
Oh, wait a minute . . . that’s 1984, a fictional future, dark and distant.
I’d better get back to the real world, to the here and now and my to-do list of much-needed home improvements:
—Smart blinds for all the windows.
—Smart locks for all the doors.
—Smart cameras for home security (the new ones have night vision, so I could watch my kids as they sleep, if I had any).
—Smart appliances (smart stove, smart oven, smart washer and dryer, smart coffee maker) that I can operate with my smartphone from anywhere on earth. My smart fridge will alert me when I’m out of pesto!
—Smart lights for all the rooms so I can dial in colored hues to fit my mood and choose the perfect “temperature”—never know how many Kelvins I might want, right? I just speak to my smart home assistant, “Alexa, turn on the light.” How cool is that?
Easy installation. Seamless integration to any ecosystem platform—Google, Apple, Amazon. No third-party compatibility problems. No security breaches. Updating the software is a snap. Great customer support. Sure the stuff’s a little expensive, but hey, look what you’re getting—and as prices come down and the tech gets better and better, you can always upgrade.
Big Brother wouldn’t lie to us, would he?
Nah. Pass the Victory Gin.