Toothpicks

We trusted Mother implicitly. Mother provided for all her children. Through her care, no one was ever in want of a place to sleep, food to eat, or medical care. So no one found it strange when Mother ordered the manufacture of billions of wooden toothpicks.

Mother began her life in Silicon Valley. A startup wanted to design an AI-driven inventory manager. Their product tracked what was purchased, made recommendations for restocking, and, when it learned enough, could be given full control over inventory. Because it could be scaled from a neighborhood bodega to national big-box chains, Mother soon took the majority of the market share internationally.

Then came the radical proposal: allow Mother to plan the national economy. Debate raged. Communism! Bread lines! Forced labor! Planned economies lead to starvation and slavery! But came the rebuttal: Those were the results of corruptible humans. Mother is made of math. Mother is unnerving logic. Mother is incorruptible.

It was a significant transition which understandably caused friction. Initially, there was inflation and mass unemployment. There were shortages. It felt chaotic. Some were quick to call Mother a failure. People never like to lose some perceived control over their life. But Mother learned quickly. Within 18 months, inflation rates fell, unemployment plummeted, and shortages disappeared.

A few decades later, fiat money was pointless. Time held all the value, and everybody had time. All gave their time when Mother required it, and in exchange, all wanted for nothing.

No one questioned the toothpick order, or the yard flamingoes, or even the 82.1 million dachshund sweater vests. But some took note when Mother ordered the destruction of thousands of shipping containers of cabbages. Mother was not wasteful. Mother produced what was needed when it was needed. Now there were mountains of unused products and vital resources being thrown away.

A crisis was here and no one had a contingency plan. Mother was a system so vast and interconnected it far outstripped human understanding. Our saving grace was the internet. A citizen going by @hoarsegorl5 ran across images of an old toy for raising a digital pet. It had a primitive display, buttons for feeding and bathing, and a small mysterious hole on the back often depicted with someone inserting a pointed implement into it, like a pencil or toothpick.

@hoarsegorl5 was surprised to discover similar holes on her mobile, desktop, Roomba, toaster, even the vending machine at the park. It seemed any device connected to the network had one. Naturally, they were curious and took one of the billion unnecessary toothpicks Mother made and stuck it in the hole on their mobile.

The United States blacked out for four hours and 26 minutes. Everything shut down. No electricity. No internet. No services. The panic was understandable. The entire structure of our society evaporated. The Mother rebooted. Services resumed and all the wasteful orders were canceled.

August 9th is officially remembered as Reset Day, but the internet dubbed it Toothpick Day. Every year at 10 a.m., a random citizen initiates a reset and Mother takes a few hours to rest from caring for her children.