You open your refrigerator. Before you is a ghostly sight. Stragglers, tramps, and echoes of foods past populate the sparse shelves and crumb-laden crispers. You need groceries.  

In this day in age, what are your options?

One, you can leave your home, reusable shopping bag in tow, and enter your local grocery store on foot, in real life. You perhaps small-talk the checkout person. You half-smirk at a neighbor. You might see a tiny cat in a handbag. Then you’ll trek back home with the goods you need, feeling like a quintessential society-dweller. 

Or, option two… you can basically think your groceries to your front door in fifteen minutes. 

Let’s review. 

Option one requires effort, initiative, and an abiding sense of the greater good. 

Option two: Think. Then groceries.

Because that is what BUYK – a new grocery delivery service – promises. Trust me, I know. I got the flier shoved in my face walking down 5th Avenue in Brooklyn. Of course I have no backbone, so I took it with a smirk and placed it in the garbage can on the next corner, which already had a few in there. 

Anyway, you download the BUYK app, order whatever groceries you need, and they’re at your door in fifteen minutes or less. Whammy-blam-blammo. No more eating a bag of Cheetos for dinner because you forgot to defrost something, or having to feed your children broccoli shake because you didn’t see what was left in the freezer. Just select, order, and in less time than it takes to rant about a bad series finale, your shopping’s done.

Problem is – according to a recent New York Times article talking about, well, what the problem is – BUYK and the like don’t use your friendly neighborhood grocer to collect these purchased goods.

No, those fine purveyors, the backbones of our local communities, are ignored. Left out of the process and struggling with lost business. Instead, BUYK workers collect your order from “hubs” –  which are basically nondescript units around the city filled with inventory bought at wholesale prices. 

Many store owners, vendors, and politicians are ruing the BUYKS of the world, and the effect they will have on neighborhood economies. Unfortunately, it’s not going anywhere. Who are we kidding? We have an unrelenting need to bring immediate mega-convenience into our lives. The whole concept will simply evolve accordingly and soon we’ll be able to get our groceries in seven minutes, three minutes, one minute, negative-eight minutes, and so on.

So, with that resignation to ruthless progress in mind, why stop at groceries? What other aspects of our lives could be “BUYK-ified” and hyper-improved beyond what’s necessary?

Some ideas:

ARTBOTOMY

Eager to see the best art in the world but don’t want to wait on those long lines? Hate dealing with space-hogging selfie tourists? Worry that the museum guard in the corner is undressing you in his mind? Always wanted to speed up those pesky self-reflections prompted by masterworks?

Well, say goodbye to all that nonsense, because ArtBotomy is the first app to project art directly into your frontal cortex. Just download ArtBotomy, click ‘Visit’, and press your device against your forehead. In an instant, you’ll have digested and interpreted Picasso, Goya, Rembrandt, Klimt, Rothko and all the other greats without having to think at all. You might as well go ahead and get rid of your eyes too, because with ArtBotomy you’ll never need them again!

PUPPY POPOUT

You just got to your sofa after a long day of remote work one room away. You’re exhausted and ready to unwind with phone and TV, mindlessly absorbing noise, color, and targeted ads. 

Ruff ruff! Oh, no! Looks like Snookems needs to go out and do her doggy business. And she likes to meander! Ugh! Zen ruined!

You need Puppy Popout.

With the Puppy Popout app, a set of mystery hands appear at your door when you need, swipe your canine friend away, then bring them back five minutes later, panting  and with empty bowels. A half-hour’s chore compressed into five minutes, without having to leave the couch or ask any questions at all or wonder what happened to your dog in that five-minute span. All you need to know is that Snookems has been taken care of and you didn’t have to lift a finger. Metal!

THE INSTANT BABYSITTER

Your human babysitter has canceled at the last minute, but those Broadway tickets were impossible to get. What do you do?

Download The Instant Babysitter: the next-gen, child-minding app that’s there for you with a few swipes.

Forget about having to trust a teenager or your stoner sister-in-law ever again. Just open the app, place the screen no further than five inches from your child’s face, and let the swirling, kaleidoscopic, CIA-created imagery keep them in a rapt, catatonic state until you return. We guarantee they’ll be in the same exact place you left them, ensuring their safety while giving you peace of mind. You can even upgrade your subscription to access the ‘fugue state’ option, which gives your child the ability to reach for nearby basic necessities, like food and drink, without interrupting their trances.

Let The Instant Babysitter keep your little one frozen in security. So you can enjoy the show!

PROXEE

Listen, we all have obligations that come with existing as a person. And they’re all so annoying! Wouldn’t it be great if you could do all the things in life you had to do, without doing them?

Introducing PROXEE. Simply download the app, enter the life event or moment you have to tend to – a family function, a DMV visit, a relationship breakup – and one of our Proxees will go and experience that thing for you. Afterwards, they’ll message you with a streamlined breakdown of what happened, who was affected, and how you should feel about the whole thing.

Never choose between binge-watching Nailed It! and a third cousin’s funeral again. Forget having to deal with the whole to-do of going out into the world and making contact with others. Have Proxee take care of your priorities for you. 

That way, you can finally get away from all that living and go back to doing what you want to do: just living.