---

The Hole 3:
Return of the stick

Scientists used to believe that one of the things that separated humans from other primates was our ability to use tools -- it's how astronauts got to the moon, and it's how music producers get Ashlee Simpson's voice to sound decent in post-production.

But in the 1970s, it was discovered that chimps also use tools, fishing tasty termites out of their mounds with sticks. And presumably shortly after dinner, they can employ leaves in much the same manner as Digital Slobs, assuming we were also stuck in the jungle after suddenly realizing termite shish kebabs didn't agree with us.

Such Discovery Channel images popped into my mind as I sat on a park bench several Fridays ago stuck in The Hole -- the glitch-ridden bad luck zone of the Digital Age that left me cut off from my online purchases, my cell phone service and potable water all in a single afternoon.

Thoroughly humbled as my 21st century life lay heaped in a pile of binary ones and zeros, I began to envy the simpler ways of our primate cousins. After all, ape gizmos only seem to be "buggy" in a good way. Deep in The Hole's high-tech jinx, the thought of pressing another button turned my knuckles white. So, instead, I traced my steps to see where things went wrong.

Then I remembered a time when chimps and I had much more in common.

Back in the 1980s my mom, in an effort to broaden my future career prospects beyond bootlegger, drug dealer or knife victim, moved us to a more upscale townhouse community when I was 12.

As a kind of cross between Huck Finn and the catcher from "The Bad News Bears," I didn't appreciate the upgrade, if only because it meant I had to put on footwear anytime I left the house. In this appearances-obsessed world, the well-trimmed hedges were more likely to get a date to the Sadie Hawkins Dance than me.

One day, while walking along one of the many sidewalks that curved around for no reason, a piece of gum stuck to my shoe. I searched the cosmetically enhanced landscape for a stick to pick it off, but there were none to be found -- anywhere. There were trees, and a million blades of grass all exactly 2.5 inches high, but no sticks.

I tried to break off a small branch from a tree, but they were all vibrantly alive, and even your average chimp knows that for wood to be useful as a leverage tool, rigor mortis needs to set in.

"Who can live in a place without sticks?" I asked myself. This thought festered exponentially as I hobbled home to pry the grassy, muddy, sticky mess off my sneaker with a screwdriver.

Apparently, my new neighborhood employed lawn maintenance people who ran around picking up all the gum-removing sticks within a 3-mile radius. Community planners anticipated everything from the slopes of manmade hills to sprinkler-system trajectories -- but somehow a 12-year-old with gum on his shoe was not factored into their Utopian equation.

Over time, I more than adjusted to prefab habitats. Now, when it rains, I'll only go to fast food drive-thrus that have awnings.

Still, pacing around in The Hole, I found a stick and took it home, just to remember how it feels to hold a gadget that doesn't need tech support.