Isn’t it crazy that less than two hundred years ago, Jedediah Smith would get famous just for making it through the Mojave alive? And the Donner Party, those settlers who got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountains and had to eat each other, that happened a hundred and seventy years ago. It took two months for rescuers to get to them. Two months! Now there’s a ski resort up there with a bunch of cute shops and restaurants all connected by smooth roads and packed with well-fed people in shiny, warm cars. And right now, I bet there’s somebody eating in one of those joints who’s frothing mad that they’ve waited twenty minutes for their food. ‘When are those tacos going to get here?’ they’ll say. ‘I’m starving!’ And they’ll be saying it within shouting distance of where those explorers boiled and ate their shoes, shivering in the dark for an entire winter just two lifetimes ago. And here’s the weird thing: The angry diner’s anger will be genuine; the bad service will actually ruin their day.

— Ether in Jason Pargin, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, 2024, Ch. Day 1, p. 60